Calacanis with a pretty good rant against Vibrant Media. They make the engine that powers the 'contextual advertising' in, for example, Forbes - ie, roll over a link in an editorial and get a nice big ad.
Now, I agree that tactics like this bastardize ads. But at the same time, the traditional separation between ads and content, well, sucks - because it turns ads into transaction costs users must pay to gain access to content. I think models like the Post's 'paid discussions' - where sponsors pay for discussions NOT about their product, but about things that users derive value from reading about (ie VW sponsored a discussion from a prof about the history of engineering or some such)- are the future for ad-supported content-rich media. (Via PaidContent).
What you're suggesting reminds of innomediation - corporations using internet as a platform for collaborating with customers on innovation. Examples could be Innocentive, TecEx or Experts Exchange. One of the reference papers on the topic is MIT's The Power of Innomediation. Unfortunately it is not for free - if interested I can send you the pdf by email.