Yes point taken. Overall this thread gives us a couple of ideas to play with or directions to explore. Appreciate again for looking into it The Eskimo!

Thanks really appreciate that! (And no I wasn't referring to App Review, my apologies for the confusing wording. The fact the documentation solely mentioned "... apps that target macOS 13 and later ... needs to only ..." without saying anything about App Review apps or not made me think that the /Library/LaunchAgents way is universally dropped. Admittedly we could test that ourselves but we'd feel more confident if Apple says it's still supported. I think we got what we need, thanks again!)

And thanks for the reply anyway The Eskimo!

Alright I submitted an enhancement request FB11985759 for the general MetricKit usage against system service scenarios. As mentioned in the ticket it hurts to know there's such a good framework out there but we couldn't apply it to our software due to more complicated use cases. I don't know how often/soon Apple responds to this kind of enhancement requests, hopefully sooner than any inferior solutions can dig their roots deep and it will be too late to replace it for even a better option.

Thanks The Eskimo! Bug number is FB11768989. "we presumed that “3rd party software” meant you were using VPN software from another third-party developer" Yep I assumed a "neutral" tone because I didn't want to make it sound like our app is to be incriminated;) - and in fact I did verify a few other VPN clients to say this is a common problem as we see it.