Having looked at this further, it is almost certainly the case that the problem is with insserv. While the installer is waiting for a response, you can look at the installer files and confirm that it uses insserv. In particular, look at the file
/tmp/vmis.XXXXXX/install/vmware-installer/bin/configure-initscript.sh
The XXXXXX part is random.
It is true that insserv should not be behaving as badly as it does, but in any case the VMWare installer should not be using insserv on Debian/Ubuntu systems. The policy manual explicitly states that update-rc.d is the right tool for manipulating init scripts.
http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-opersys.html
Until VMWare fixes this, I suggest the following workaround for users:
Rename /sbin/insserv to /sbin/insserv.bak (or something). This will prevent it from being found, and the installer will fall back to using update-rc.d like it should. It might be a good idea to keep it like that, to prevent other installers from doing the same thing.
