VMware loves to sell licenses. Well I can tell you that you are losing business because of the 15 character hostname limit on all operating system flavors of virtual machines. Many linux folk will simply scoff and dismiss your product despite all its other virtues over this limitation (particularly when they discover it is due to Windows/netbios limitations... double scoff). Even though you can skirt around it I would argue it is probably enough reason for some to put it on the deal breaker list. Nobody enjoys hacking their way around these types of things. It should be supported within the product.
I would be interested in hearing arguments for keeping the limitation in place. 5.5 is on its way and I do not believe this has been lifted in that release.
Paul