Well yes there still can be an issue when building sources off of.

A series of builds of vlc 1.0.4, vlc 1.1-git and mplayer showed
vlc 1.1 is fine as things stand

Both vlc 1.0.4 and mplayer, while finding the headers, will fail to link to libGL.so

The fix there (as things stand) is to create a new link for the build(s), after which it  can be deleted

sudo ln -s /usr/lib/mesa/libGL.so.1 /usr/lib/libGL.so

What may continue to be an issue is the update to libglu1-mesa-dev which moved those libs inside of /usr/lib/mesa

for the moment here have reverted libglu1-mesa and libglu1-mesa-dev back so the libs are in /usr/lib

All the builds now work correctly with opengl output

noting that these are make installs, (checkinstalls), not package builds, in a package build of vlc 1.0.4 the libGLU.so issue was irrelevant, libGLU.so isn't linked

As currently set up (updated libgl1-mesa-dev, reverted libglu1-mesa-dev

 doug@doug-desktop:~$  ldd   /usr/local/lib/vlc/video_output/libopengl_plugin.so
	linux-gate.so.1 =>  (0x00fa1000)
	libpthread.so.0 => /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libpthread.so.0 (0x00b0f000)
	libGL.so.1 => /usr/lib/nvidia-current/libGL.so.1 (0x001c7000)
	libGLU.so.1 => /usr/lib/libGLU.so.1 (0x00137000)
	libm.so.6 => /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libm.so.6 (0x005d0000)
	libvlccore.so.2 => /usr/local/lib/libvlccore.so.2 (0x00918000)
	libc.so.6 => /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libc.so.6 (0x00b35000)
	/lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0x00e62000)
	libGLcore.so.1 => /usr/lib/nvidia-current/libGLcore.so.1 (0x00fa2000)
	libnvidia-tls.so.1 => /usr/lib/nvidia-current/tls/libnvidia-tls.so.1 (0x00110000)
	libXext.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXext.so.6 (0x00112000)
	libX11.so.6 => /usr/lib/libX11.so.6 (0x006ca000)
	libdl.so.2 => /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libdl.so.2 (0x00da1000)
	libstdc++.so.6 => /usr/lib/libstdc++.so.6 (0x00287000)
	libgcc_s.so.1 => /lib/libgcc_s.so.1 (0x00f0e000)
	libhal.so.1 => /usr/lib/libhal.so.1 (0x00122000)
	libdbus-1.so.3 => /lib/libdbus-1.so.3 (0x0037a000)
	librt.so.1 => /lib/tls/i686/cmov/librt.so.1 (0x001a8000)
	libxcb.so.1 => /usr/lib/libxcb.so.1 (0x003b3000)
	libXau.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXau.so.6 (0x001b1000)
	libXdmcp.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXdmcp.so.6 (0x008f5000)

With the libglu1 updated, but a deb package build  instead

doug@doug-desktop:~$ ldd  /usr/local/lib/vlc/video_output/libopengl_plugin.so
	linux-gate.so.1 =>  (0x00fa1000)
	libpthread.so.0 => /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libpthread.so.0 (0x00b0f000)
	libGL.so.1 => /usr/lib/nvidia-current/libGL.so.1 (0x001c7000)
	libm.so.6 => /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libm.so.6 (0x005d0000)
	libvlccore.so.2 => /usr/local/lib/libvlccore.so.2 (0x00918000)
	libc.so.6 => /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libc.so.6 (0x00b35000)
	/lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0x00e62000)
	libGLcore.so.1 => /usr/lib/nvidia-current/libGLcore.so.1 (0x00fa2000)
	libnvidia-tls.so.1 => /usr/lib/nvidia-current/tls/libnvidia-tls.so.1 (0x00110000)
	libXext.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXext.so.6 (0x00112000)
	libX11.so.6 => /usr/lib/libX11.so.6 (0x006ca000)
	libdl.so.2 => /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libdl.so.2 (0x00da1000)
	libstdc++.so.6 => /usr/lib/libstdc++.so.6 (0x00287000)
	libgcc_s.so.1 => /lib/libgcc_s.so.1 (0x00f0e000)
	libhal.so.1 => /usr/lib/libhal.so.1 (0x00122000)
	libdbus-1.so.3 => /lib/libdbus-1.so.3 (0x0037a000)
	librt.so.1 => /lib/tls/i686/cmov/librt.so.1 (0x001a8000)
	libxcb.so.1 => /usr/lib/libxcb.so.1 (0x003b3000)
	libXau.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXau.so.6 (0x001b1000)
	libXdmcp.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXdmcp.so.6 (0x008f5000)