No, because drilling a 2mm hole in the manifold would make the car run consistently weak throughout the rev range whereas the ecotek is designed only to open at certain vacuum levels. It should only really open/make a noise on overrun, if it does it at any other time then it's not been set up properly. It should not be open (ie. making a noise) at idle speed.
Inside the Ecotek there is a spring and a bit of plastic that blocks the hole... that would appear to be it... I did shake it to see if there was anything else stuck in there but there wasn't.
One of the reviews of it was done by a guy I know who has nothing to do with the people making it, I don't know if it's on their site or not, but he found it made an improvement to the MPG of his car (a 15 year old Mk2 Fiesta XR2). The device has also been endorsed by the CSMA (I think it has anyway - if not then it's just been in their mag loads of times). So there must be something in it. On the other hand, I have one fitted to my car (a 14 year o ld Mk2 Fiesta 1400S) and I can't really see any difference over the MPG before I fitted it. The only difference I seem to get on there is that because it opens when you back off, ie to change gear etc, the rev's don't drop as fast as they did without it. This is obviosuly because it opens, weakens the mixture and so the rev's rise slightly.
I would imagine that on new cars where the ECU is constantly checking the mixture etc, the device would be more or less useless because any effect it could have would be countered by the ECU adjusting to compensate.
And no... I didn't pay £80 for mine. ;-)