Alex,
Correct, the VST for a "Landing" airport in your Flight Plan will guide you to pattern altitude, or 1000 ft AGL if not published.
If you do a Direct To, it's basically setting a flight plan from your current location to your direct to destination. The direct to destination would be a landing point, provided it is an airport, so it should activate the VST.
Now, if you add a waypoint at the end of the runway and use the Set Altitudes to assign a target altitude for that waypoint, the VST will guide you to that waypoint altitude, ie the runway altitude. That is a workaround, but please understand it's not for IFR Glideslope or IFR VNAV.