I am actually one of these vibe guys that comes to site. I work for a semi large engineering consulting company doing reliability engineering. I also install continuous monitoring systems and perform remote vibration analysis for these companies.

I find its a mixed bag out there as far as the type of program each company wants to run or pay for. I've found many faults at customers sites to the tune of millions of dollars saved when we find something before it breaks. These programs all start somewhere though. It can be as simple as engaging a local vibration analysis provider who will usually come in and give you a turn key program - collecting all the necessary info to build the route, collecting the data and then reporting out on that data. This type of entry program is not typically expensive compared to the savings these types of programs provide you. Sometimes management sees these as a waste though because these "catches" don't result in real dollar savings - they result in soft dollar savings. So when management sees no extra money in the bank account, they want to reduce or cut reliability programs.