Dirk Terrell has an excellent piece in the August Sky & Telescope on using PHOEBE to study eclipsing binary stars. I would hope it might stir up more interest in VSO among the many readers of that magazine.
I haven't used PHOEBE (yet) but I have a copy of Binary Maker which appears to do very similar work as PHOEBE and I found it very interesting. I would use it more if there were some way to get radial velocity readings from typical stars. I know there are many active amateurs doing spectroscopy but I don't know their 'parameter space,' ie, how much resolution is needed for EBs of what period and what magnitude, aperture needed, etc. It seems to me stiking up a collaboration among amateurs doing light curves and amateurs doing spectroscopy might be more prolific than looking for professional help?
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/binaries
Feel free to dig through the old messages. You will find names of people you recognize, like Dirk, and may make other contacts.
Too bad the list has gone inactive. Maybe you can get it going again?