So the answer is.. no, VMWare still doesn't work on PCLinuxOS? ...
Did I say No?? Did you try what I suggested? If you have problems with VMWare you could try VirtualBox instead. It is in our repo and tested to work with PCLOS.
You said to either use a non-upgrade system, or to use a testing kernel which may, or may not, bork my system.
My system is already upgraded, and I'm not going to risk borking by using software from testing.
As for VirtualBox, I prefer VMWare. I can easily move VMs between physical machine with VMWare.
Maybe someone can figure out why PCLOS kernel headers aren't being found?