99% is nowhere near the correct VLC usage proportion.
The WMC player is single-instance, so it is necessary to have
another simple player available to play unencrypted content files.
However, the people who use VLC for normal non-hacking purposes
generally do not show up on forums like this one.
I play a lot of mp3 files and never use VLC to do that.
It is quite common for those who own music CDs from years back
to rip them in order to play them on the phone or in the car.
Rather than Videolan developers trying to remove important features
like Metadata from the program, they ought to try to perfect them.
Maybe the solution is to check with the developers of the 'rip' software
and notify them that they are not incorporating the correct metadata
into the files they generate.
Perhaps VLC could implement a metadata editor function so you can edit
into the file you are playing what you know to be the correct information.
Many mp3 players already allow the user to edit the metadata-like
internal information in the mp3 file.