Starting with version 12, VMware decided to drop any methods of controlling shared VM's other than from the GUI. The tool of choice before 12 was 'vmrun' and many, like me, had developed powerful scripts upon this tool such as nightly pause/backup/resume. And I suppose this is exactly the reason why they dropped it: with functionalities like sharing and controlling via scripts the Workstation-Version came way to close to their 'real' products (like vSphere and so on). So dropping the support for shared VMs at the end has no technical but purely political reasons.
Recently VMware came up with a new way of controlling VM's on Workstation: 'VMware Workstation REST API'. I have not the slightest idea what they drove this way but I'm sure someone @ VMware will know. Anyhow, I was hoping for an improvement of this unacceptable situation regarding the shared VMs and I gave this new method a try. As I feared ... no signs of support for shared VMs here either. The 'VMware Workstation REST API Explorer' doesn't even list (GET /vms) the shared ones.
For me that's it with my 'relationship' with VMware. I've being a big fan of them, using their products since they first appeared on the market, in the 'early days' I convinced many people at my previous employer (nickname 'Big Blue') to use VMware and start virtualizing machines. And even after starting my own business I stayed with them, bought any new version - up until now.