bash - quoting and escaping of a ssh command line

the following command looks properly quoted and escaped:

$  echo -e ssh -q rmthost 'bash -c "ps -ef|grep '\'''\\\<'defunct'\\\>''\''|grep -v grep|awk '\'''{print \$1}''\'' "'
ssh -q sbpsvrwm757 bash -c "ps -ef|grep '\'|grep -v grep|awk '{print $1}' "

but when executed, the result is not what is expected:

$   ssh -q rmthost 'bash -c "ps -ef|grep '\'''\\\<'defunct'\\\>''\''|grep -v grep|awk '\'''{print \$1}''\'' "'
    root16986 16982   0        - ?           0:01 

the awk command didn't seem to extract the right column.

Now I followed the link provided by Siguza and came up with:

$  echo ssh -q rmthost "'"bash -c '"ps -ef|grep '"'\'|grep -v grep|awk '{print \$1}'"'"'"'"
ssh -q rmthost 'bash -c "ps -ef|grep '\'|grep -v grep|awk '{print $1}'"'

that looks perfectly escaped too, but still doesn't work:

$  ssh -q rmthost  "'"bash -c '"ps -ef|grep '"'\'|grep -v grep|awk '{print \$1}'"'"'"'"
Missing }

or,

$  echo ssh -q rmthost  bash -c '"ps -ef|grep '"'\'|grep -v grep|awk '{print \$1}'"'"'
ssh -q rmthost  bash -c "ps -ef|grep '\'|grep -v grep|awk '{print $1}'"
$  ssh -q rmthost  bash -c '"ps -ef|grep '"'\'|grep -v grep|awk '{print \$1}'"'"'
   root 16986 16982   0        - ?           0:01 

or,

$  echo ssh -q rmthost  "bash -c \"ps -ef |grep '\'|grep -v grep| awk '{print \$1}'\""
ssh -q rmthost  bash -c "ps -ef |grep '\'|grep -v grep| awk '{print $1}'"
$  ssh -q rmthost  "bash -c \"ps -ef |grep '\'|grep -v grep| awk '{print \$1}'\""
  root 16986 16982   0        - ?           0:01 

any idea why?

Please note that I need bash -c to enable bash-style output redirection like >/var/tmp/1.ouy 2>&1 for the command.

your help is appreciated.