Not hard to see why the game is dying.

Honestly I dont have a lot of buildings unlocked so I only have minor experience in building bases but that did sound like a fun battle to me like breeje also said, and based on what you described it sounds like you had a profound effect on turning the tides as an individual. It does suck that you can't control what other players do. that said it sounds also like the vs had very good intel on the area so I am not surprised they put a quick end to such buildings in range of the frontlines.

I hope this does not sound condescending but in my experience the best cure for feeling jaded is a short break. You may reapproach with a fresh strategy and spirit

I'm just going to blatantly copy and paste a reaction I did in a similar thread:

It is an relatively old game that is hard to renew like some other games (COD, battlefield, Assasins Creed) are doing. In addition, changing or adding anything in the game can have strange butterfly effect consequences due to the gargantuan code (invincibility bug, unlimited boost bug, exit vehicle bug and more), making extensive updates difficult.

Despite all the theories, there is most probably just one thing at work. Fatigue of the game due to long time playing it. People then magnify certain aspects they think need changing and give these as reasons (remove lattice! Make tanks real tanks and virtually indestructible! Air/infantry is too weak/strong in this game! More/less base building!).
In the end it is simply that people move on to different games and most eligible people have already played this, making the "untapped" pool relatively small unless you throw a ****ton of money in marketing so even COD players will try it out.

But can't they walk through a Vehicle Gate anyways?
I know it has far fewer spaces for an enemy to hid in/behind, but you still can't shoot them through a Shield they can just peek in and out of.

They're not usable within a Base Build proper, I'll give you that, but they can be useful set on the very outskirts of a Silo's Radius.

Fact of the matter is, Enemies will normally focus fire on the first Construct they see, so even without rendering the Bunker Invincible via Repair Module it can serve as a Firesink.
It also gives friendly Infantry another point to operate from where they might otherwise be out in the open, so there is that as well.

Otherwise, I'd just use it Un-powered in the field like a Turret, it doesn't NEED a Silo to be placed or any Modules to be useful after all.

I don't use the Vehicle Gate.

So you keep your Silo outside of your walls or what?

My bases are built using terrain as an advantage, without cheating to place objects inside rocks or anything of that sort. It's not always the highest efficiency, but they are not as easily destroyed as bases placed on flat surfaces.

And no, I don't need to place the silos outside of the base to reach them.