You say "poor network connection" in your OP however I feel that statement is a little inaccurate.
I live in Australia, which is technically a "supported" country, however due to my location, I ping to NA servers at 350ms (without VPN) or 240ms (with VPN). If I were to ping any other server in Montreal I will get 240ms..
In addition to this I have 0% packet loss and my local speed is 100Mbps down/2.5Mbps up.
From a technical standpoint, my service is not poor, but simply my geographical location.

My connection is not poor, however without a VPN the game is impossible to play at an endgame level..

I think it is worth noting that a big downside with the server side option is that someone who lives in NA, Canada or EU will have a pretty large advantage over someone who lives far away, like me.

Client side however, this advantage is greatly reduced.

This will become an issue once PvP is released next patch.