I don't particularly think VSL instruments are any more cumbersome then others, in fact quite the opposite, they are quite flexible. There is nothing stopping you, for example, from putting all of your articulations in Synchron Player under one super tall column (dimension), and only need a single keyswitch for each articulation. You can reassign keyswitches and CC's to various aspects of sample playback better then just about any other sample player I can think of.
Yes, the factory defaults happen to be setup in a way with 4-5 dimensions, which means you need to send perhaps 4-5 keyswitches using those arrangements, but you can rearrange your own presets however you want and can avoid multiple keyswitches.. ViPro also you can arrange presets using only a single row of X-based keyswitches if you want.
Yes, I would also prefer to not have to recreate entirely new dimension trees, in Synchron player, I'd rather be able to use the existing factory presets as is.
But the bigger problem has to do with DAW's themselves. Many DAW's have nothing at all provided to facilitate articulation switching on the fly. Lots of sample libraries handle things slightly differently, so any kind of articulation management system needs to be flexible. Only 3 DAW's really provide any kind of solution, none perfect. LogicPro has Articulation Sets, cubase has expression maps, and StudioOne5 now has a very rudimentary keyswitch lane which can send only a single keyswitch at a time.
There is also a third party extension for Reaper which can add some capability.
In the case of LogicPro and Cubase, they are still deficient, I have listed above in my earlier post some of the specific things that they did not address and still cause composers to jump through way too many hoops and challenges, usually kind of complicated also. On top of that many are trying to incorporate Lemur and other touch pad interfaces into their workflow, which further complicates the matter of how to choose articulations on the fly as they are playing in parts, etc.
I personally see a huge opportunity here for VSL to provide a generic solution that will expand the articulation management of ANY daw when used in conjunction with VePro. Presently, VePro usually adds an additional level of complexity that usually makes articulation management even MORE difficult then without it.