Absolutely. That's precisely what St. Augustine was referring to as a vortex of confusion.
We don't do theology based on our speculations regarding what God would/wouldn't do. We do theology based on what He has revealed that He DOES do. Necessity of Baptism for salvation has been revealed to us. BoD has not been revealed but is mere speculation.
.
The deposit of faith becomes gradually explicated over time, as I'm sure you would agree. The fathers all taught some degree of BoD (sometimes just for martyrs). Most of the material you find from the fathers where they
seem to argue against BoD is explained contextually by the sermons in question being directed
to catechumens, and in an environment where there was a problem of catechumens remaining in the catechumenate indefinitely, so that they could engender social standing with Christians while not having the moral obligations of a Christian and being able to quickly "pivot" out of Christianity if a persecution were to occur. Obviously in that context you're going to find the fathers exhorting their catechumens to baptism and not telling them to trust in their own justification, just as if a priest was preaching to a Gallican crowd he's not going to even
consider mentioning the fact that we can have a bad pope, or St. John Vianney speaking to the people of Ars isn't even going to
consider mentioning that culture actually plays a role in rules for modesty.
.
By the time you get to Trent BoD is ordinary teaching, and by the time Trent concludes, it's
abundantly clear this is the case. Bellarmine, writing in the immediate wake of the council, witnesses that BoD is taught by all the theologians.
.
The point simply being that it's
far more than "speculation." Maybe during the Arian period there was some doubt as to the quality of teaching of BoD, but at bare minimum it's been clearly the teaching of the Church since Trent, and none of the authors who've taught it have understood it to be in conflict with baptism's necessity.
.
But we're going backwards, aren't we? I would like your input on how, if there's no chance that someone not baptized can go to Heaven, the Church can offer ceremonies for them and bury them on sacred ground. It seems that one must admit BoD in principle in order for such a law to be legitimate.