The WLN controls are actually a pretty good compromise in that they make it pretty easy and relatively clear to create the one differentiation that most people really want: real friends versus acquaintances.
I wish we lived in a world where people actually read the popup dialogs that popped up in front of them before clicking on "OK"...multiple times (a real experience that I witnessed that altered my perception of the masses completely). Unfortunately, we don't, and as the ones building the software, we have to deal with that (and often suffer when it comes to things like FaceBook that has has mass-adoption overlap).
I think the huge challenge in these sites is that they start off simple and targeted (like Facebook), then grow, and find they don't have a sane way to deal with that growth.
Of course, trying to solve it before you need to is just a pointless waste of time, because odds are very against you ever needing to solve it.