VFD's are a lot more common now, they are used instead of gearboxes or special ratio boxes when you want a drive that is not a standard speed. Often as a bonus you get slow start, regenerative braking (and with that you can share the main rail across a few drives and use the energy generated or you will need a chopper resistor to dump it) and ramp up and down along with a DC brake to stop the motor and load when commanded. The drive inverters can be cheaper than the control gear otherwise required.
Attached a motor at work, 7.5kW with associated gearbox. Funny enough I was checking it while listening to the Amp Hour podcast, and while Chris was saying how big his 180W unit was. This one has only a soft start, a inverter for it would have been about as big as the motor gearbox again, instead of a small sealed box on the wall with 2 contactors, a soft starter along with motor overload and a single 5A fuse all on a strip of symmetrical DIN rail. I use a chain hoist to work on it, as the motor is 78kg and the gearbox is 110kg, so not exactly hand holdable, Biggest one I used was 22kW, that one would happily destroy the load if things went wrong, 10cm output shaft and a lightweight frame so it only weighed 200kg.