VAC isn't any better if you ask me.
The only good thing about it is really how it'll ban you from all VAC servers if you get banned for cheating in one. But even this is pretty much going to dustbin cos during the time of F2P games, theres no reason for the people that are going to cheat not to make a fresh account just for the game. The people with hundreds of euros worth of Steam games arnt likely going to cheat in the first place.
Most VAC games are also community server based, with active adminstrators that own the server to kick who they think are cheaters (or just really good legit players), no rage hacker will manage for a long time. I come from APB myself that is an MMO-server kinda game where the above naturally doesnt work like that cos every GM needs to be hired by the devs. Planetside 2 will be a similar kinda game to APB in that sense.
But yeah, I dont personally think VAC is any better. Both are bypassed by sophisticated cheats. They are always one step behind, but its good cos they keep the cheat devs on toes and make their life hard too.
Funny fact: Brink was both PB and VAC secured and still had cheaters. I've also met cheaters in every VAC game I've played. So I really dont know how it's much better. Given, I may have to say that I've perhaps had a few technical problems less with VAC (like, PB ive had to update manually a few times, VAC not), but then again I've also played PB games probably a thousand hours more than VAC games
I doubt giving power to players will ever happen. As long as we're talking non-paid staff, there will always be conflicts. Even if nobody would abuse it, it would always cause unrest in the community and cause conflict of interest claims. At the very best they could assign people who's opinions "weight more" to the GMs. As in, RandomJoe reports me for cheating, a fairly low priority report cos Joe isnt really a veteran and probably hackusates every player that kills him, but then PowerBob who SOE selected to be some sorta community representative reports me, cos he has been singled out from the masses and is known to be a good member of the community who doesnt really do false reports, the GMs would now be more likely to check me out.