It started on Fox, I can only surmise the reason why it was canceled was because it wasn't raunchy enough
As for the technology in production, from everything I've seen, production costs have gone up because of computers. Yes, it means faster turn around meaning shorter shooting schedules (always good), but you're paying a company to produce CGI artwork at top dollar.
This is why most CGI shops in holly fold right after their show/movie they worked on is killed. They over charge. Foundation imagining, for example, died with the cancellation of Enterprise. Square Pictures folded after their disastrous Final Fantasy: The spirits within movie (they spent 200million on the film, and then made the studio only a tenth of that back leading to the near bankruptcy of Squaresoft).
on the flip side, ILM is almost all cgi work these days, but they are good at what they do so they stay in business.