I have 0% experience with Quigo, though I've known about them for a long time; the New York Times article about Quigo published today paints Quigo as a much hotter and sexier alternative to  Google AdWords/AdSense.

Google, in this article by Louise Story of the Times, is painted as smug, an agent against change in an industry segment, PPC, that it dominates.  Google is reactive (not proactive) adding some of the elements of the Quigo system; but generally has been against individual control of advertising spots by the advertiser.  For  PPC, it almost seems like Google has more in common with Yahoo and it's own interests, than the advertisers it's supposed to be serving with these ads.   At least, that's the way it reads to me.  According to the Times story:

"…Here is how this contextual advertising has traditionally worked: Google and Yahoo post ads on hundreds of thousands of Web sites, but both operate as blind networks — they do not tell advertisers which sites their contextual ads run on. Instead, the advertisers buy keywords for ads across Google and Yahoo’s vast networks of Web sites, including the home pages of big media companies and the smallest of bloggers. "

"…Quigo, by contrast, gives advertisers not only the list of specific sites where their ads have appeared but also the opportunity to buy only on specific Web sites or particular pages on those sites. It also allows media company sites like ESPN.com and FoxNews.com a chance to manage their own relationships with advertisers."

Google is reacting by giving up more information:

"…In the next few months, Google’s advertiser reports will begin listing the sites where each ad runs, Ms. Malone said. She added that advertisers on the Google networks would soon be able to bid on contextual ads on particular Web sites rather than simply buying keywords that appeared across Google’s entire network. "

Control of where an ad appears directly relates to branding, as well as being a factor in the effectiveness of an ad:

"…“Because traditional networks are blind, I’ve always assumed that many of the places where your ads come up are on B- and C-level sites,” Mr. Klein said. “With Quigo, you know it’s on ESPN.com, not Joe Schmo’s sports blog. It’s a premium site, and you’re willing to spend more money.”

To me, the Quigo article is not really about the technical innovations or features that Google may or may not implement in the near future that match Quigo's - it's about Google maturing and acting less like the innovative company it was - the one we all fell in love with and more like Microsoft, IBM and HP.

Think about it - Google could have been much more transparent about Search in general - yet it chose not to be.

Some of the reasons for a lact of transparancy are valid and others, maybe not.