Yes I love, VR too for many situations. But sometimes fast lens speed is
more important. IS, VR helps prevent your movement but does nothing to
prevent the subject being blurred by its own movement in lower light
situations. That is where a faster lens and a tripod might have helped.

I don't know how you can, by just looking at a photo, know that the
photographer used a tripod and waited a long time to get that shot or not!

That's OK, you go for the easy shots, I'll go for the hard to get, hunt,
stalk, ambush and shoot the delicacies type of images.

I think here is the difference, if I am a spot where I can possibly get a
good action shot, I am not just waiting around being bored. I am watching
closely, looking for trip action that might make something happen and I am
reevaluating my position relative to the subject to get maximum effect that
I want. And if a subject does not seem to offer a possible spectacular
image, in a, relative time ~ uniqueness of the image, calculation then I
move on. The more possible uniqueness of the image the longer I am prepared
to wait.

I think the least Tern Photo is a great example. Looking to shoot some
shorebirds, I was on the beach when I spied these least terns flying back
and forth to the beach. I stopped for a quite few minutes and watched and
waited for them to return to the behavior they were doing before my presence
interrupted them. I then noticed some of them were carrying a small fish
back to the beach, and I waited and studied them to be able to recognize the
pattern. Then after waiting and watching a bit longer I witnessed the
"prolonged" mating behavior, but they were in a wrong area and the
background was full of other shorebirds not making the best image.
http://photostockfile.com/Favorites/source/030509-151335-th.pict.html
So I waited and watched again. Of course while I was sitting and waiting I
watched the other shorebirds present to study their behavior, and I took
quite a few other action shots of them. But my main focus was always waiting
on the least terns mating action.  And after a few hits and misses I got a
couple of them with a non-cluttered background and more to my liking.

To an outside person or other photographer I could have looked like I was
just sitting there for hours not shooting much. When in reality I was pretty
busy the entire time. And I got great dramatic images that would never be
possible to capture by one who does not have the patience, subject
knowledge, and foresight to stop blend in and wait awhile.

I heartily disagree that this approach is; A. Boring; and B, static or
nonproductive.

Lets get this straight, I do not sit and wait. To the unknowledgeable, I
might look like I am just sitting and waiting. But I am not. And these
little guys don't follow my directions very well (kind of like my wife,
oops). They constantly move around the beach, land in different spots, get
chased around by larger shorebirds, fly off because of kids playing just
down the beach. That is why I have to be in the best area and try and get
the shots when and if I can. And sometimes I don't.

This image was framed that way for possible titles at top and features index
or story text at side. The main action is slightly off the thirds rule. I do
wish that I had left a little more room around the terns but I did not have
control of where they would land and end up doing the mating dance and the
end mating behavior. I had my 600 f4 on a big tripod and I could not move
around much because the birds had gotten use to me being there. If I would
have tried to move back a bit, every shorebird would have scattered and the
terns stopped their mating and flown away again for a while. Sometimes it
takes a while for the birds to get used to me in one location. Of course
some people never get used to me at all.

I actually took many sequences of this behavior because I knew it was an
extremely hard shot to happen upon. Here is a different image.

http://photostockfile.com/Favorites/source/030509-151335-th.pict.html

John Quincy Adams said;
Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties
disappear and obstacles vanish...