No, some of the "big boys" have agreements with the USB-IF that allows them to sub-license their VID to customers, in every single instance I've seen this done it's been for free and there is no charge. However, it always involves requesting your PID's (or block) from the manufacturer, it's a painless process and much less painless than handing over $2K.

You can pay your straight $2K and forego the signing of the agreement that allows you to use the "USB Logo" after your product has passed compliance testing, we went down this avenue, couldn't give a monkey if we can use the fancy USB logo on the product or not, the license agreement runs for 1 or 2 years (can't remember which) after which time you need to pay the "admin" fee again to be able to continue using the USB logo - although your VID is yours forever.

Everybody can apparently sub licence PIDs, I've seen the request page to do so on the USB-IF site, but it's on a specific product by product basis and you have to give quite a lot of detail out about it and I think that you have to be the "developer" of the product for a third party.

If you can get away with using a PIC (shudder, I just got cold sweats) then provided it has a USB interface, you can get a PID for free. I'm sure there are many more microcontroller manufacturers with similar agreements in place, just none of the ones we just so happen to use.

Adrian