Yeah...I've been feeling the same and will definitely invest more on the cover. I paid a whole whopping five bucks at fiverr.com and got exactly what I paid for. :(
I like the CloudFormation bit - I think I'll give that a try. I wrote a book on how to setup your own VPN in AWS for overseas streaming (step-by-step) but using the OpenVPN AS appliance.
Everyone's mileage and needs are different but OpenVPN is probably a better choice over PPTP & L2TP for security and speed - at least in my experience. www.virtualjj.com if you want to take a peak of what I did.