I have VRD version 6 which is still working well. Long may it continue. A couple of things I've noticed:
I mostly use VRD to edit programmes from ITV, C4 and C5, all in HD. In the past the 'save as' option would pause during saving at each cut to re-encode 10 or 12 frames. Recently this has stopped happening - the file saves without pauses and is fault-free. As I have not updated VRD, I assume that this must be due to some change in the way the programme files are structured. And very welcome it is.
I decided to retry avidemux to see whether the suspected change to the source files might have improved this free software's ability to handle cuts and joins. First, I must say that the latest version of avidemux is much slicker and more polished than it was last time I used it. I tried it with this week's episode of Professor T (C4), making no attempt to restrict my cuts to I-frames, as I have always had to do in the past. It worked perfectly, with no picture break-up or pixelation. So far as the video is concerned (and pending further testing), it seems to me that avidemux may now offer a viable alternative to VRD.
I say 'so far as the video is concerned' for a reason. I like to use subtitles when viewing, but I hate DVB subs and those with SDH entries. When I process a video file I always use SubitleEdit to convert the DVB stream to .srt format and remove the stuff I don't want. With VRD this is simple to do as it preserves the DVB stream when a video file is edited, meaning that the edited video file just has to be fed into SubtitleEdit to read and convert the existing subs. Avidemux does not preserve the DVB sub stream, meaning that the subs have to be extracted from the source file (I use mkvtoolnix for this) before editing, then separately edited and resynced to match the video. This is not particularly difficult to do, but is certainly more time-consuming than with VRD.
Overall, while I certainly hope the current versions of VRD will remain usable for a good while yet, I would not be unduly inconvenienced if I had to move back to avidemux for this sort of editing.