Comparisons and advocacy

Yes, you do - for lots of reasons. Moodle has all these things, exactly what you want for some of them and pretty close for the rest. I am going to detail a couple of them, just to make it clear for you. 

Q1. Any thing you want, enable stats and that should take care of it but... read on below

Q2. Versioning issues are not that clear cut, but backups can be restored as new courses and can be versioned from there.

Q3. Create your own archives, anyway you like, or use Moodle's backup process per course or your own server backup process for the entire site. Moodles backups are a three part process, separated, or co-joined, to suit your need. Database, moodledata folder, Moodle code separate or together - backed up from your own controllers.

Q4. I am not in the profit making business,  but PayPal, I understand, is excellent for that purpose, and I think you can set whatever pricing policy you want/need.

Q5. I understand that Moodle for Mobile is to be ready in the first half of next year. I saw it previewed at the MoodleMootAU in July and it looked ok, early days then but promising. I don't particularly care for the entire cell phone concept personally so for me it is a giant waste of resources. 

Q6. Now here is both a drawback and an absolute bonus for Moodle, depends how you want to see it. Moodle runs on an SQL database, so if there is no report there that you need, then you can write it for yourself. I am a lazy schmuck, I want to use default reports, and make them good enough for me. Or I am a dynamic tinkerer and want what Moodle does not have, so I write my own set of reports and damned if Moodle can stop me. Either way, it is a drawback if you do not find the existing reports sufficient for your need so you have to write them yourself. Or it is a bonus that you are not constrained by licensing issues and you can do your own reports, exactly the way you want them. I really go for the absolute bonus, myself, it makes life easier because I can do what I want, well almost. 

Now here is the rub - Moodle is Open Source. It has a reputation for being a solid tool, flexible in many ways, constrained by its own technologies in others. If there is something you do not like, change it. If you want additional course types, create them yourself. You don't like the front end, rewrite it to suit your need. Don't like the backend, well, redesign the tables. Want additional reports, write them - and you can give the changes you make away, if you like, or you can charge like a wounded bull. If someone wants them, they can pay for them. Take your concepts, rebadge it and onsell it if you want, just follow the rules of the GNU GPL. That is the real power of Moodle. Try that with proprietal software - and then stay out of bankruptcy.. 

You might want to also take a look at Canvas. http://www.instructure.com/

I find the Canvas LMS to be a lot more intuitive than Moodle. I just starting playing around with it recently. I was not impressed with our upgrade from Moodle 1.9 to 2.1, so I have been looking for possible alternatives to our current LMS.

Grading seems to be a lot simpler in Canvas. Moodle is missing an easy way for teachers to grade incoming manual graded assignments.