Well, I didn't expect my initial post to create this ammount of responses.

To make it easier to understand once again, how do VM-protectors work?

1. Do they have their own C++ cross-compiler which compiles all code to the VM-bytecode
or
2. Do they just take the compiled x86 code and analyse it in the same way ObjAntiHack also does?

The answer is most likely "2". The VM protector does not work without the step which ObjAntiHack does, so "it is already used in nearly every protector having some kind of VM features", isn't it?