What is an advantage of a packet forwarding architecture?

Manipulating HTTP headers requires application-layer (Layer 7) proxy processing, which is incompatible with a packet forwarding architecture.

SSL offload requires the device to terminate the TLS session, which demands full proxy capabilities, not packet forwarding.

In a packet forwarding (or pass-through) architecture, the device routes packets directly without terminating the connection or inspecting application-layer content, eliminating the overhead of connection setup, teardown, and deep inspection. This minimal processing path results in lower latency than proxy-based architectures that must fully reassemble and inspect traffic.

Handling larger packet sizes is a function of MTU configuration and interface capabilities, not a characteristic advantage of packet forwarding architecture.