In this paper, vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL) technology is presented as potential prominent performer to address key challenges and novel functionalities of future optical metro networks. The adoption of VCSEL-based modules is particularly attractive for the implementation of programmable (SDN-enabled) transceiver architectures, targeting a radical reduction of cost, power consumption and footprint. Different flavours of these architectures are presented to enable agile, scalable and high capacity optical metro networks. Furthermore, advanced functionalities and programmability aspects are analysed to explore the potential of adopting solutions based on this technology.