Nov 29, 2016 - 2) Altium require you to maintain a subscription on that license in perpetuity. Posted a single video in the community video library since 2014.
It's OK - You need excel installed to be able to have BOM templates, anyway. (Note that if you don't use BOM templates, and just want the spreadsheet parts database, you *can* use libre office. So no need to actually buy any extra software.
Just a need to install and use freeware) I think the issue is that really for a database driven system (which this feature is really about - excel spreadsheet is just a simple way to have an easily dealt with portable 'database' on disk in your dev machine) And you do need a way to properly manage and maintain a database - for a start, database allows any kind of data to be stored, in whatever order you organise it - all defined by your manifest. So it'd be hard for them to write a tool that let you properly manage the database for an arbitrary manifest.
Or write your own manifest to create a new database in the first place. And what about big data imports and exports to/from other business systems? Also, if Altium was your only access method to a database, then stuff goes wrong, how do you rescue it?
By forcing you to be responsible for the database, I think they do you a massive favour in the long run. Vault is licensed the same way as Altium Designer (and the same way as the new CST PDN plugin) 1) you pay a license fee upfront to buy a perpetual licence that you can install and use forever.
2) Altium require you to maintain a subscription on that license in perpetuity if you want to get updates ongoing. (they used to sell major version upgrades to perpetual licenses before this) So if you stop paying vault license fees you are stuck with whatever was the latest version of the vault at the time your license expired. If you have multiple licenses that you need to use (ie, a team) Then you're limited to updates to vault software by the date of the subscription that expired first. Lots of times it's easier to find the information elsewhere by googling it.
Then again, they'd like you to pay for their expensive training services (a few thousand dollars for 4 days). There's other options (Robert Ferranec's videos for instance) but no matter what you pick it just won't cover everything, and there's always gonna be some new features to keep up with. Sometimes you'll manage to find tips elsewhere (like ninedot connect's videos) but I wish Altium would make these redundant. They haven't posted a single video in the community video library since 2014. It wouldn't be too hard to post a few quick how-to's for their new features on there.
Their blog also has very little content. Webinars are a pain to watch and seem mainly like a sales pitch instead of training.
I far prefer to just use plain PcbLibs+SchLibs as-is, without Vault or DbLibs (only seems to complicate things, without actually being useful in any way). I thought you actually lost access to the vault full stop! I started out with SmARTwork in 1988 the moved across to Protel in 1990 (in the days when Nick Martin told me in Adelaide that 'the software is so good we don't need to supply a demo version for people to try').
I upgraded a number of times until several years ago when I decided to bite the bullet & move over to DipTrace (& Proteus as a contract engineer). I just got so sick of all this so called Altium 'integrated' stuff that caused me so many headaches. Yes, Altium is very powerful & yes, with Altium you can do almost anything you want when designing a PCB. 
But, I can move from the schematic to the PCB in DipTrace smoothly without any 'hassles' which makes DipTrace a more productive package for me. A group of us have been working with DipTrace to implement lots of shortcut keys in a similar fashion to Altium. We have also been working hard on the libraries, which got implemented in Ver 3.0 Instead of going down the path of providing the multitude of manufacturers parts (ie via part number from On Semi, Microchip etc), we have gone down the path of simply searching for the generic footprint name (ie TO220, SOT23, SOIC8 etc). If there is an odd ball footprint, just choose a standard part that is close, make the modifications to it in 2 minutes flat, then save it. Yes, I still use Altium when upgrading legacy boards, but I often cringe when something that should be simple turns out not to be. In the Protel days most of the menus where logical & self explanatory.