My thought on this is that VIPM is essentially an installer for VI packages.  It is possible that some package developers are putting files in Program Files or writing to the registry or something else that a normal installer would do and therefore requires administrative privileges.  Most other installers are always run as an administrator so that they can handle these types of things without issues.  So I would think that either 1) VIPM should be run as an admin when installing packages, 2) VIPM should handle privilege issues nicer so that it informs the user in the case that VIPM needs to be re-run as an admin, or 3) standards should be put in place such that packages should not do anything that requires admin privileges.  They all have their advantages/disadvantages but I dislike 3) the most because it limits the possibilities of what developers can do with VIPM.

I like this idea.  As an alternate or addition to this idea, packages that are on the LabVIEW Tools Network can show their Compatible With LabVIEW status (NI, Standard, Silver or Gold).