Safari and Camino (Gecko) on OS X. Both blocks of text are the same length.

If you think about it, this is probably the desired result, otherwise there would be a small area of space between VA and much more space between AA or VV. Which would then look unbalanced.

This is the centuries-old practice that the article seems to be trying to reinvent. Adobe InDesign has had "optical" kerning for a while now.