Airway system (VOR NAV) is alive and well
The (H) VOR's, VORTAC's for airways will be around for a long time to come. VOR's you may be hearing about are likely (T) or (L) VOR's that do not have "airway functions". Remember there are a lot of older jets, DC8's, DC9's older 737's and many business jets and turboprops bombing around the sky domestically with with just VOR's and DME's, not to mention some older military planes.
If you fly IFR, you file and fly airways for the most part, which of course are all based on VOR's.
The dream of tomorrow is Free Flight = Fly, autonomously (direct) at the altitude, time and airspeed you want with out talking to ATC, including taxi. Key word is talking. No doubt the NAV of choice of the future will be GPS based and not VOR based. Still VOR's will likely be here for a long time to come. Basically envision Free Flight as computers talking direct to each other direct, verses people talking on radios and reading and copying clearances and commands. Plane to plane and plane to ground computer coordination will handle the traffic. People will be there to monitor and may be vote on the command. Scary. The old joke is the future plane will have one pilot and a dog. The pilot is there to feed the dog; the dog is there to bite the pilot if he tries to touch anything.
(H)=high altitude, (L)=low altitude, (T)=terminal. This refers to the service volume of the VOR.