Ok so it isn't free... it is by far my favorite, its the little things like being able to set line send delays and past in 10k plus lines of API calls into a broken API that chokes when you hit it too fast. I've never run into something it couldn't do or couldn't make easier.

Really? How far behind would it put you, at work, if someone talked for 11 hours, in the conference room, to video cameras, at your office? Sounds like a very productive day to me. I'm sure it bothered them just as much and got a lot of real work done.

I wouldn't say its dead... There has always been a subset of technology's that were out of reach budget wise, but prices come down and smart companies offer ways to learn for exactly this reason. I recently got a job that had a VM section of the interview, I aced for entry level from my experience using VMs on Desktop computers. No formal training or Commercial experience required. Now I have virtualization experience to add to my resume. This is just a constant in IT that has to do with new technology. A company may want some one with 10 years of experience to work a system or technology invented last year but often they find that there are only much greener applicants. This leaves the door very much open to learn at home types.