In January 2012 with Windows 7 SP1 host and Windows 7 SP1 guest on VMware Workstation 8 it still solved the "no network in guest" problem for us, using above mentioned technique:
In the .vmx file add a line
ethernet0.virtualDev = "e1000"
that is in addition to obviously needing a
ethernet0.connectionType = "bridged"
or "nat" instead of "bridged", whichever you want.
Just mentioning, when fixing it we did already have VMware Tools installed. But the "no network in guest" problem existed with and without VMware Tools.