Tony,
Maybe it's your Internet connection or a training issue. We have been a user of Edline for three years now and all the troubles you are referring to hasn't occurred to us. We've had any down time and the timeout you are referring to is a necessary evil. Our parents love Edline and our teachers do too. Yes, true our parents and teachers weren't real comfortable with Edline, but training is key. We hold training course for both teachers and parents and have been able to engage all our users successfully.
We are a gradequick web user as well as Admin Plus and they all work together, which makes the management piece easy. Yes you pay for it every year and yes it's a bit expensive, but you get what you pay for and we get exactly what we want, a SIS that works with the teachers gradebooks and online information system which works together with all three. Edline has release tools which allow homework assignments to be posted and collect online by teachers, aslo they have a forum tool and an online test and survey generator.
Wildfire