NVH pants too- been around for a long time now, F1 motors used pneumatic valvetrain a long while back.
Lotus, Mahle, Ilmor and I guess Ricardo have all done demo vehicles with camless systems. Regarding mainstream OEM, a little company called Fiat have done something (quite a few years back now):
I don't agree that it makes the engine shorter- it doesn't, if you look at even a 15 year old VW 16v head they use a roller rocker and sink the camshaft axis level with that of the tappet, meaning it's always shorter than anything (solenoid or cam) acting directly on the valve (i.e. above it)
Deffinately the way things are going, but won't be properly common for another few years, FPT charge a premium on the 500 partly to cover the cost of the twin-air system.
