Answering machines

Why are telephone answering machines so lame? Why do they only come with about 60 minutes of record time? Why is the default action to stop accepting new messages when the system is full rather than to discard messages that are months old? And why do they s-p-e-a-k s-o s-l--o--w---l-----l------y?

Vonage VOIP mail is much better for single person use, but not if you have more than one person who uses the line.