Maybe a wrong evaluation of OpenGL version in a VM

[micheus]

but is there any chance that a move from display lists to VBO's or whatever replaces display lists ...

I don't think so.

2.0.2 won't start in my virtual machine. 2.0.1 does start.

I know what is happening. Wings3D 2.0.2 requires OpenGL 2.1.
That is not a Wings3D problem it's about the VM drivers!

I'm assuming you are using Virtualbox as VM since you had mentioned that before. It's not easy to get OpenGL version too high, maybe because they still consider it experimental as you can read in its documentation:
Because 3D support is still experimental at this time, it is disabled by default and must be manually enabled in the VM settings (link).
You will need to install the 'VirtualBox Guest Additions' - and you do that in protected mode for Windows client. Maybe you already know about it.

Even if you get it enable, don't expect to get the same OpenGL version from the host. Once, I could get the "2.1 Chromium 1" for WinXP. I don't know how it could be for newest OS's.