So - the moral of this story is:
Start with the files you want to process sitting on your hard disc. How you get them there is your business.
Then process them with VOBBlanker if there is garbage you want to delete before using the files for whatever purposes you had in mind originally.
Which means you haven't really lost any capabilities of VOBBlanker - since it never was a ripping program or capable of breaking css encryption anyway.
Of course the same can be said about FixVTS - which also was never a ripping program nor capable of breaking digital copy protection. It simply cleans up and takes out the trash . . but apparently some people think intentional flaws and defects in commercially made dvd's counts as digital copy protection somehow.
Bizarre . . . .