I can only answer conceptually on the VM part, because I use VMWare Workstation for my VMs, and I'm not using rlauncher.
With VMWare, you can launch an Autohotkey file that WinActivates the VM Window, then runsrunwait, "c:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Workstation\vmrun" -T ws -gu xyz runProgramInGuest "x:\virtualmachines\XPGames\XPGames.vmx" -activewindow -interactive "C:\Program Files\PopCap Games\Bejeweled 3\Bejeweled3.exe"
Since the VMRun command doesn't return until bejeweled3.exe exits, as far as the front end is concerned, it's as if the program were running on the regular machine, i.e. the front end will wait.
You'll have to find out if VirtualBox provides a similar interface.