This is macro, working with a Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8 VR II from at most a couple feet away and usually half that or less, and I need all the shutter speed I can get to even come anywhere close to freezing motion. Even at f/11, of course I'm using flash! You'd be seeing solid black frames if I didn't, or else so much noise that a solid black frame might be preferable. And to your point about depth of field, again, this is macro - at any aperture wide enough to avoid noticeable diffraction, I have at best a few millimeters of DoF to work with. That's why professionals who shoot insects usually kill their subjects so they'll hold still long enough for focus stacking, and that's why I'm glad this is a hobby for me. That frees me to pursue it in whatever manner I see fit, and because of that I'm under no constraint to do other than take the shots they'll let me have, which is in any case what I'm really after.

I also don't think a setup like the one you describe would be very effective for the kind of shooting I do. For one thing, there'd be no way to control how a given wasp would choose to approach the bait. That might not be insurmountable if autofocus worked well in macro, or at least in macro for me, which it never has with any camera I've tried; it hunts a lot and usually fails to find focus. This seems reasonable enough given what such a use case demands of the AF system, but also means there's no such thing as being "free of focus".

Too, as I mentioned in a sibling comment, neither wasps nor I generally find anything to be dismayed about in being close to one another, so there's no real benefit I can see in physical separation. (The hornet's attention seemed drawn by my flashes much more than by me; it took a while for her and me both to find spots to work, and she only seemed to notice me once I started shooting.)

And if I can already get good exposure levels at f/11 and the sensor's native ISO 64, where's the appeal in being able to add noise or diffraction? If anything I'd want to open the aperture further to take advantage of no longer being limited by sync speed, but even that would come at the cost of precious DoF.

In theory an approach like the one you describe might yield better illumination of (relatively) distant background, and there may be some appeal in that. Fermenting figs are unusually attractive, and in their absence I tend to spend at least as much time following wasps around as I do shooting, so fixed lighting isn't a very feasible option. But with three flash heads I have light to spare, and pivoting one of them to throw light behind the subject instead of on her might work well enough; I just haven't really bothered, because the background being as dim as it is defocused seems to me to help keep the viewer's eye where I want it. But it's at least worth a try to see how a brighter background works out.

I have also thought on occasion about going out with the diffusers that mount to my flash heads, but I never seem to remember to actually put them on when I have time, and I'm never inclined to take the time when I think waiting around might cost me a shot. I do actually like the effect produced by the reflections off wasps' compound eyes from bare flash heads, but again I think it's worth finding out if I like something else better.

Fortunately, I've got all winter to experiment with both techniques, so as to have some idea of what I'm doing by the time next year's foundresses emerge from hibernation and start building.