Melinda,
As a process kind of thing, I'm also concerned about the growth of the "temporary" sub-IP area, so I think there are issues here with both the work itself and in how the IETF goes about taking on and structuring its work.
And proposals have been made to dismantle the SUBIP area and place the remaining WGs in the most appropriate areas (some of them are pretty much done with their chartered work). The chartering of L2 and L3VPN WGs gives a little more focus, and limits the solution space.
It's not the creation of the temporary SUBIP area that caused the growth of the WGs. It's the natural progression of the opportunities that MPLS provided that led to the application WGs such as PWE3, PPVPN, etc.
Not all of PPVPN is based on MPLS. Some of us are doing real IP VPNs, using IPsec, etc.
Joe