I don't have any links but I've had plenty of experience. I grow them all pretty much the same way whether they're Neoregelia, Aechmea, Vriesea, Cryptanthus, Dyckia or whatever. Just spread the seed on top of a pot of moist, well-packed sphagnum moss and keep them covered and moist until they germinate. The only thing I would hesitate to grow this way might be Tillandsias, but they take so #@*! long to mature from seeds that I usually don't grow those anyway. Vrieseas are kind of slow compared to some of the other genera but not nearly as slow as Tillandsias. I'd sow them on the surface rather than suspending on a screen. That sounds like a complicated and high-maintenance system, and hard to remove the seedlings from the screen once they've germinated.

If your seeds are rotting they're probably not viable. The trouble with getting seeds from the BSI is you don't know how old they are, sometimes it's many months between whenever they were harvested and sent in to when they get distributed. If you can get fresh seed you have a much better shot at germination, but even then they don't always germinate. Some batches and some varieties just seem to produce more viable seeds than others, I'm not sure why.

Most species are pretty easy to tell when they're ripe. All of the fluffy wind-born types (Vriesea, Tillandsia, Guzmania etc.) come in a hard pod that splits open when the seed are ripe, you just have to make sure you catch them before they fly away. Dyckias and their allies also have a hard pod that splits, but the seeds are neatly stacked up inside like little poker chips. The ones with fleshy berries (Aechmea, Billbergia, Neoregelia etc.) will often turn color when they're ready, but not necessarily. Many Aechmeas have berries that suddenly turn blue or purple, but others are much more subtle and you have to test them by tugging gently on the berry. If it's ripe it will come off easily.

The berries are very gooey, but one way to do it is to squeeze the seeds into a cup of water and rinse the goo off. I usually do this if I want to dry the seeds for later use or to send to someone, but otherwise I just squeeze the berry directly onto the surface of the sphagnum. The fresher the better. The goo helps them stick to the surface, which is why sphagnum works better than loose media, it holds together better. You might have to spread them out with a tweezer or other tool to keep them from clumping up too much. I give them a couple of squirts of water from a spray bottle and that helps break up the clumps too.

You should see germination within a few weeks if the seed is still good, but how long it takes to get a mature plant will depend on the species. About the fastest I've ever grown is Aechmea brevicollis. You can get a full-grown blooming plant in about a year. Tillandsias can take 7 or 8 years. Tillandsia seed also takes about a year just to ripen on the plant too, whereas Billbergias are ready in 5-6 weeks, Neos 2-3 months.

Some species self-pollinate but others won't set seed unless you pollinate them. Some are self-compatible and others will only cross with another species. The only way to know which fall into which category is just by observation, I don't know of anything written on it.

Im making a book on Lisa's advice, its wonderful!