I was a member of VPL, its how i found Solpets and now i've been an artist for them for a couple years. i was also able to find other freelance jobs from their site.
with that said i have no interest in going back to VPL. how the site went down and was promised to come back up but never did kinda turned me off from them. I had contacts from people who i now have no way of knowing because the site went down with no warning.
I found TGL on my own, after VPL went down i search for pet site forums and it came up.
I've also have suggest TGL to others as well because i feel its better
I like TGL, i like the staff, i like the structure of the forums, and everyone is generally more friendly and helpful.