Mark, Your points are very valid.
I agree that it is the vendors’ responsibility to offer better way of doing things. We certainly try to help our clients on that. Just as an example I met a prospect today morning who is a trainig  provider and has never done eLearning. They are driven by the desire to add value (& to some extent forced by recession too) want to make their solutions better with some eLearning value adds. Of course they are also looking to expand their market by expanding into newer client bases – ones that can’t afford them right now or ones to whom they can’t travel t deliver ILT sessions. And to this prospect, I was discussin about thinking of how they should think of adding social media components to their solutions. The bottom line I think is the vendors who don’t offer better solutions would themselved perish!
I do agree with you on your thoughts on the incorporation of social media in LMS. Its my mistake that the link to UpsideLMS in the post above was earlier directed to our traditional LMS. We have most of the features in place and a few more in the works. My colleague Abhijit Kadle posted a small write up on the same today. I think you have already seen that. The write is available here: The LMS and SNS: A Fine Balance.