VLEs - how much longer?

Glynis Cousin's articulate paper on the use of technologies and pedagogies and her comments on the use of VLEs made me reflect on my own experience of first WebCT and then Moodle and I started to recognise that I don't really like VLEs - and probably never have.My attitude towards them was probably based more on convenience than on appreciation.
VLEs have been around for a some time and their age is telling. Their design has of course been rooted in the instructivist approach to teaching and the constructivist elements, though continuously expanding give the impression of being 'bolted on'.In fact most academic content developers still only use it in a purely instructivist format.
As Cousins put it '... VLE environments tend to be skewed towards the simulation of the classroom, lecture hall, tutor's office ...'
This to me smacks of 20st century learning, not really forward looking in its scope.
I would advocate that we start letting go of this institution-centric beast with its 'control-freakishness' and move on to something more radical. What is required is a piece of software which has been redesigned from its roots based on the social constructivist model of learning, without the legacy stuff.
Interestingly developers do work on such tools and I have been alerted to one called Ecto (http://www.ectolearning.com/ecto2/Default.aspx) which has been designed with an interface not too dissmiliar to the popular social network application Facebook. It has a personal profile section, a 'Create Groups' section, a IM-tool and a Blog area.Content can be added as the usual file upload but developers may also link directly to YouTube movies or Flickr image files. RSS feed capabilities allow users to pull content from syndicated sites such as online publishers Web-sites or relevant Blogs.And this all from a personalied interface!Currently this is offered as a 'hosted solution' meaning that HEIs will not have any direct control over the management and tracking of their learners. I really wonder whether this is such a bad thing? Just think of all the resources institution could save currently spent on managing and maintaining VLE 'bloatware'.
Whether Ectolearning is succeeding or not is secondary - what is important is that people have recognised there is a problem and do something about it.