Is the VLE dead?

Several years ago my school paid for a company to come along and set up a VLE and provide training. It was a MOODLE based system and the company did a bit of design and interface with the school's user database to unify login details.

The VLE looked awful, crashed a lot and nobody had any time for content creation. Basically, the whole project died on its arse.

A couple of years later my interest in the VLE was reignited and I decided to setup my own MOODLE server at home on an old PC just so I could find out about how it worked.

After a few months of tinkering at home I went to the ICT support team and together we rebuilt, re-designed and launched a new VLE.
This version was run on a better server (Debian Linux, not Windows) looked better - the theme was more in-keeping with the school's website etc. I led training for the whole staff on how to use (and why to use the VLE) initially interested parties came along and were trained unofficially but then it was co-opted into the CPD sessions.

The second VLE took off quite well at first, a lot more interest from staff. It had more courses with more content and (almost) never crashed. As time goes on the use of it waned. The school was under scrutiny from the Dementors  and no one had time to do things that were seen as 'nice extras'.

I have always been a supporter of, and a driving force for the VLE but now I wonder has its time been and gone?

It seems madness to write off this sort of technological input to the classroom but that is not what I'm suggesting. 'Web 2.0' technologies have raced ahead and a lot of VLE functionality is now available online, on the cloud and much prettier than most schools could develop themselves (obviously a heavy cash investment in a VLE would change this!)

I love to try new technologies and I really enjoyed creating VLE activities but that takes time. There is an awful lot of 'off the shelf' web stuff which is as good, or even better than home made.

My school has subscribed to I Am Learning and we're about to launch this next week. Thanks to twitter and the myriad teachers there sharing ideas and good practice I have discovered many other resources which are great tech uses to get the students engaged.

Using these resources saves a lot of time compared to doing it yourself from scratch and the user experience is superior to moodle (without a complicated front end on it, like the OU have).

Some resources I have discovered (via twitter etc) are listed below.

I Am Learning -online homeworks (£)
Socrative -quick quizzes (needs students to use tablets/computers/smartphones) (Free)
Dropbox/Google drive/Skydrive etc  -a place to share documents etc (free)
Popplet -interactive concept maps (Free)
Pixton - create your own concept cartoons (Free trial then £)
Infogr.am -create infographics (Free)
Triptico -hexagon learning template (Free)

None of these individually replace a whole VLE but how many people use EVERY function available?

I'd like to hear others' comments so please drop me a line!