I missed the 'heated debates' you mentioned. If anyone has a link back to them I'd be interested to read the debate.
I just did a forum search for "vibrato lfo control" and came up with this:
http://vsl.co.at/community/posts/t20075-Control-an-instrument-s-Vibrato-amount-with-Vienna-Instruments-interface#post139413
The first thread that came up may not exactly be a "heated" debate but their were some strong opinions either for and against.
I didn't have time to read through the other threads but they're from 2005 and all of the threads are pre VI-Pro so maybe you have a point about the software evolution.