What's the point of the ps3 interface if it can't launch games or connect to network?

The point is accurate emulation and having it working in the first place. It was one of the biggest endeavours in terms of feature development since it required implementing a lot of low level code that is only used by vsh. Just the fact that it works at all without all the workarounds previously required is a true showcase of emulation accuracy.

For users, there's nothing you can do with it besides looking at it, exploring the menus and using the Web browser.

For games to work on vsh, it will require RPCS3 to have multi-process support, which will require a rewrite of several core parts of the emulator, and is not likely to happen anytime soon.

For Netplay, there's a RPCS3 wiki page about it.