Your thoughts on Natural Playgrounds?

I wanted to highlight a comment I got recently from reader Anita Van Asperdt:

I am a landscape architect. In my profession we are almost forced to design with standard out-of-the-box playground equipment because these structures are designed with all the safety codes and regulations in mind. Therfore, park departments expect us to use these plastic structures. I can hardly call this "design" it is just picking out a nice product from a cataloge. I finally decided to educate myself about all those safety regulations and start designing Natural Playgrounds so I can be creative and the kids don't have to play in a plastic environment. I am not the only one delving into Natural Playground design there are several other companies. . My company is called LandCurrent other companies that offer creative playgrounds are: the Natural Playground company and Leathers. If you know of any others please post it here, because we need as many resources as possible to get away from plastic playgrounds. I am convinced that natural playgrounds are the new revolution in playground design, they are safer, cheaper, healthier for our kids and above all more fun!

I've had "Natural Playgrounds" (the company, not the idea) on my list to blog about for some time. In answer to Anita's plea I'll try to feature many of the natural playground resources I'm aware of over the next couple of weeks.

But I know I have lots of landscape architect readers (which, BTW I am not, being, rather, an odd combination of scientist and garden historian) and I'd like to hear what you think about the natural playground design movement. It seems that the buzz isn't reaching the streets...in spite of articles and news coverage about new types of playgrounds, most people seem to go for the easiest option, which is ordering a plastic playground from a catalogue.

That said, I think of this blog as an 'idea board' for all kinds of playground thoughts, both natural and otherwise, with design ideas that I find interesting or unique or which I think could be adapted in a variety of ways and into different settings. It's an appreciation, a celebration, of the playground art, in a way. So there will always be both 'natural' and 'artificial' here, but very little catalogue.

Your thoughts?