how would you categorize VA's improvement over that same period?
Not a lot at all.
Look at the camera market - April 2008 was very early MP H.264 and the industry norm was still SD analog for a few hundred dollars per camera. Now it's Full HD and 1080p HD analog is $50, 4MP IP for $100; WDR all over the place, low light color a reality, etc. A big big transformation.
For analytics, it is somewhat better, VideoIQ established itself as reliable, Avigilon bought them, expanded analytics, that I think is the biggest product development shift.
OV is gone, 3VR is a shell of its self, ioimage got bought out by DVTel who did very little with it, etc...
Some of the others remaining (Agent VI, Briefcam) are better somewhat.
But there's been no radical transformation. If you went back to 2008 and said, "In 8 years, video analytics would still be widely mistrusted and not widely used", how many would believe you? I wouldn't of.