After a little more thought, I realize where the big problem is....
With the other products, like Workstation and Fusion, I can edit the vmx files all I ant and I can always ask it to execute the VM. I am never prevented from at least trying to run it. If the vmx file has minor errors, I might get or warning or it might not exhibit any strange behavior, but the inconsistency will be noted in the log file. If I make a really badf error, then the VM won't start and I'll get an error, which may or may not point me to the problem in my edit, but again, looking at the log file where tell me exactly waht I messed up. With ESX server, I can't get to the point of telling it to execute the VM so I have nothing in the log file to hint at the problem. I can't tell it to execute the VM because I can't add it to the inventory.
But why should I havef to add to inventory in the first place? Why not just let me directlty execute any vmx file in the datastore? Better, why do I have to use this the datastore browser in this stupid tool on windows to copy files at a glacially slow pace? Why can't I just copy files to an ESXi server with something standard and well supported, like scp,m sftp, ftp, or anything else in common use? I can understand the notion of creating centralized management tools for idiots, but making that the only way to mianipulate the system is rather cumbersome for those of us who are perfectly competent to hop in and do things the quick and easy way. It also prevents a lot of automation. I don't care about the need to sell 'solutions', I just want products that work.
I don't know if it was getting bought my a corporate giant or turning into a big corporation with the entry to the enterprise market, but I can't help but notice that VMware is not the nice, nuimble and approachable little company they used to be. Now they must over complicate everything. Its not just ESX saving me from myself, preventing me from running a VM several steps ahead such that I can't even see at a glance what is wrong. The process to get an answer was overly complicated. User community, great, let's create an account. Ok, fill out the registration form, nope, password too weak, pick something more assinine. Nope, community name violates rules, pick another. Nope, junk address isn't valid, pick something real (ok, you get your own address). Of course, on every attempt, the password is blanked out, so I had ample opportunity to determine that the only way to clear the 'mistach error' from the password entry, which appears after typing the first and moving focus to the second, is to go retype the first password after the second is entered so that when focus changes they match, because when focus moves off the second it doesn't recheck against the first as the error was always set when leaving the first and the second was empty. Oh for fucks sake... Anyway, after maybe 5 tries at this stupid form, when there address is valid and name fits the rules and password fits the rules and all that other crap, oh Error, user not created. Not created why!? ahh, fuck it, Google. Oh look, I forund a login and password to the forums so I can post my question in mere seconds, after wasting 10 minutes trying to create an account. So, I'm posting on someone else's account. Why? Because the process to create one myself is too damn compicated. If I didn't have a pressing issue, I would have stopped long ago. I can only imagine that this account I'm using was publicly shared by someone else at least as frustrated as I am now. So this rant is a little bit of feedback to VMware. Stop making life so difficult for your users. I will probably keep using VMware Workstation and Fusion for the time being, but for server deployments I won't just default to ESX and will take a serious lok at Xen and other options when it comes time to move beyond just testing virtualization on servers.
