I really like VLC, its easy to use, fast and reliable. But I'm using VLC and WMP + ffdshow + AviSynth.
Many feature requests, such as:
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=46914&p=270417&hili ... th#p148802
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=20311&p=237197&hili ... th#p237197 + http://3dvision-blog.com/2d-to-3d-realt ... ynth-v0-3/
are not integrated. I also understand that it takes time, so a temporary solution would be to allow a script system, where users are able to integrate their own unique effects...
The filter collection for AviSynth is quite vast:
http://avisynth.org/warpenterprises/