I would suspect that the tiny front element is pretty strong and well-recessed into the lens body. My lenses have 77mm front elements, at least 3x bigger that that tiny thing. Most any filter will crack and stay in place of the filter ring unless you bash the front of it. So hitting the lens from the side, or dropping it with a lens hood on will unlikely cause the filter to explode into your front element. I'd rather replace a $100 filter than the front element on a $2,000 lens. Your mileage may vary.
You're missing the point. The surface area of the lens is irrelevant. The point is that striking the lens with a hammer made no effect until severely striking it with the claw end, which is simulating only the most severe of accidents. Taking chips out of the glass is going to be just as difficult or easy whether the glass is 52mm or 77mm. The only difference the larger front element makes is if there is an impact strong enough to actually break it, in which no filter would ever save you.
Like I said in that post you quoted, it's not simply the fact that the front element is resilient on its own, it's the fact that if the filter shatters (which is very likely on any impact that deforms the ring), the shards of glass can very easily scratch the surface of your front element. Broken glass is very sharp, much sharper than anything else that would ever touch the front of your lens. You have to realize that those filters are very thin glass, and any impact that would damage your front element will certainly shatter your filter, thus
increasing the risk of front element damage.
Hitting the lens from the side or the hood isn't going to damage the front element anyway, so the idea that it wouldn't break the filter is irrelevant.
You also run the risk of deforming the filter ring in an impact, which can permanently damage the threads on the front of the lens, as well as cause the filter to be stuck on the front of the lens. There have been instances where filters are stuck on the front so bad that the lens was damaged when trying to remove them.
Furthermore, physical damage aside, adding any extra glass to the front of the lens introduces unnecessary lens flares and halos that can compromise your photos, making your $2000 lens look like a $200 lens.