Yes, I have seen telnet used on a VPN but this is not a problem as you say. I have also seen it used on the open Internet as well. Crazy town.
In a training environment though, I am surprised they do not stress the use of SSH purely as an educational point.
Then again, the only Cisco training I have been exposed to used 'cisco' as the password on all devices. So, clearly convenience was trumping any demonstration of security best-practices in general.