Vehicle Licensing in the UK

It might be sad but I got really excited the other day when I received a car relicensing form through the post and noticed that it had a website - www.direct.gov.uk/taxdisc. I got even more excited when I read the booklet and realized that the system was on line and that the powers that be had finally got the Tax Disc, MOT and insurance databases to talk to one another. However, it looks like things have gone wrong. I logged on to the website two days back and instead of getting a website I got a bunch of source code. Today when I tried to log-in I got a message saying " the Web Service is currently unavailable due to essential maintenance". I got a similar message when I tried to ring the phone just now. It looks like I will be standing in a queue clutching paperwork with everyone else as usual this year. Is it too much to ask for the UK government to install a computer system that actually works?