Now, what's next? Is it the end of software protectors?

[TmC]

Having a look in the world of software protectors, we have the following scenarios:

Production Scenario:
ASProtect: Dead Project(Site still online but user forum offline. No updates in one year)
SVKP: Dead Project (v2 announced thousands of times but the site is dead (ghost))
Execryptor: Dead Project (Site still online but no activity, and no updates in one year)
SDProtector: Dead Project (Site still online but no updates in 2 years. Website shows version 1.14 while last is 1.16).
ACProtect: Dead Project (Version 2 came out last year, but no updates since then)
Armadillo: Semi-Dead Project (In user forums Gene said armadillo is still supported and new releases will consist of fixes but NO NEW FEATURES)
Themida: Active Project (THE ONLY ONE)
Obsidium: Semi-Active Project (version 1.4 is nearly out but as developer said, no new features will be present, only fixes and user database).

OS Scenario:

ASProtect: Crashes on Vista with DEP and generally unstable with Vista.
SVKP: No more supported, not tested on Vista.
ExeCryptor: Crashes on Vista with DEP and generally unstable with Vista.
SDProtector: Crashes even on Windows XP
ACProtect: Crashes even on Windows XP
Armadillo: Partly Supports Vista, fully with v5
Themida: Fully Supports Vista
Obsidium: Funny Behaviours on Vista...author is working on it.

Apart from those scenarios, all authors or most of them, moved from a "one purchase and life-updates" to "subscription models" (Armadillo, ASProtect, ExeCryptor, Themida)...exposing a clear money problem(no people trusts anymore protection systems, so no money to developers?).

So some questions arose in my mind:

It seems it's a black period for software protectors nowadays, but why?

Did Vista create loads of problems of compatibility?
Did the authors ran out of ideas on how to protect?
Did the cracking world won or partly won?

And a different question: are there/will exist arising software protection systems?

I personally believe it is a mix of this 3 reasons, maybe a 50% 20% 30%.

I'd like if we can exchange ideas on this subject and everyone to say his idea on this matter.

TmC