I respectfully disagree with this. VASL is the savior of ASL IMHO, not TPPs. Skype gets honorable mention as well.
I have been playing ASL since about 1985 and the big hurdle for me has always been finding opponents. If I had opponents I would have happily played just official stuff, if that's all there was (forever). Even if no new official stuff was being produced for ASL I think I would still have played with the base modules, RB and KGP if I had opponents (solitaire is out for me - just can't do it). VASL solved this issue for me - NOT TPPs.
I have bought many TPP products before, starting around 1997(?) with BRV & KOTH, and after finding them and being impressed with their quality (for products produced by amateur publishers), I bought all the TPP stuff I could lay my hands on for a while. This included CH products. Some of the early CH stuff, while maybe unpolished seemed OK. However I stopped buying CH products after Hells Bridgehead (the Kursk Psel river module). There was just too much other stuff out there that was better. I agree with the people posting here who complain about CH quality. It is lacking in comparison to what else is out there. I have bought stuff from HOB, BFP. Lone Canuck, Le Franc Tireur and Frontline Productions and IMHO they all had much better quality than CH. My ASL wallet isn't bottomless and while I do buy most MMP stuff I don't buy much TPP stuff anymore (unless I am really, really interested in the subject). I WONT buy CH stuff again.
This is an argument of why VASL saved the game for you.
There is no debate that without the early TTP's (including CH), ASL would have withered on the vine. They kept the game alive until MMP stepped in to fill the shoes as producer. If there would have been no interest or enthusiasm for TTP ASL, then MMP would not have stepped in to purchase the license. Thus, there would have been no future releases of BV, the ASL bible, ect., none of all of the stuff that brought new players in to this game we play.
For those of us who have been buying ASL since the mid 80's we would have had what we had but we would have gotten nothing further and so the hobby could not possibly have grown to what it is today. I was the same as in buying everything ASL until I just could not justify it anymore.
VASL has greatly enhanced that progress undoubtedly but that platform is also staffed 100% by volunteers. No TTP's, no MMP, no new material, no unlimited supply of volunteers and VASL pretty much stays as it was. It was clunky in the early versions and has come a long, long ways.
Skype did not come online until 2003. It helped the immersion of playing but it (ASL/ MMP) was well established by then.
It has all been gravy, we are very fortunate.