Those VA's you mention are successful because they have people who know what their doing, coders, painters and so on. Thats the difference between people who know what they are doing and those who don't starting a VA. You can also use your forums to schedule training sessions, or create pages with in the system to do some of the things you are speaking of.
And many of you have a very distorted view of what makes a good VA. There are some VA's that have a pretty website and aircraft, but their financial system is s*** and they are totally unrealistic in their operations.
I am friends with a gentleman that runs a VA, he is a real pilot with a degree in finance and does check rides without fancy systems and pages. You don't need all that stuff.
And you mention Metro, they don't have any special stuff on their site for training, I know as I was a hub manager, they use their forums and Team Speak.