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Control isn't dead in Modern, it's just been on life support for a while.  Here's why:

#1:  The counter magic is very bad.  The best cheapest unconditional counter costs 3 mana ( Dissipate ).  The best hard counter are very narrow ( Spell Snare ).  Considering the format is a "turn 4" format (i.e. the game is over on turn 4), not being able to count on stopping the opponent's spells until you get to 3 mana is pretty bad.

#2:  Card selection is non-existent.  With Ponder , Preordain and Sensei's Divining Top banned, the ability to dig for the specific answer you need is pretty difficult.  That means control has to rely on more generic answers (which aren't available) or getting lucky (which is bad).

#3:  The threats are extremely varied.  You've got efficient creatures , difficult to deal with creatures , cheap planeswalkers and alternative angles of attack .  Control decks need to pack answers for each, and most often the best answers for one are dead to the others.

#4:  Card advantage is practically non-existent.  THere isn't a lot of ways to generate pure card advantage, so a control deck can't win by grinding out opposing decks very easily.

#5:  The fetch / shock manabase makes it difficult to stabilize.  If you're taking 3-8 damage just from making land drops, it becomes very hard to keep the aggressive decks from killing you.

All this means that the "control" decks often look more like tempo decks.

Spell Snare is NOT like Mana Leak .  Leak just "taxes" any spell, while Snare flat out counters only certain spells.  Spell Pierce is similar to Mana Leak in that it's just a taxing effect, not a hard counter.  And none of them are like Remand in the slightest.  Remand isn't a control card, it's very much a tempo card.

The reason more people don't run Negate is because it's fairly narrow.  Why leave up two mana for Negate just to have them slam a Tarmogoyf ?  If it is every played, it's sideboard only against decks like Storm.

I think you're demonstrating a crucial lack of understanding about the different archetypes.  Vapor Snag is not valuable in the slightest to actual control decks.  It's not an answer to a problem, it's just a delaying tatic.  Snag is a great tempo card because it forces your opponent to make the same play again.  Tempo is valuable when your'e focusing on putting early pressure on the opponent (like with a Delver).  Control is important when you don't plan on providing a threat until later in the game.

As for cards a control deck should be running, it most certainly should be running Mana Leak, Remand and Spell Pierce (in that order) over Vapor Snag.  All of those counters help the deck establish a position where they can exhaust the opponent's resources before you run out of cards/life.  Vapor Snag does not accomplish this because you only spent a card to make the opponent spend more time (i.e. tempo).  Remand only trades 2 mana for their expensive spell, plus helps you dig though your deck.  Mana Leak often trades one-for-one, plus less of your mana (and can make them pause before playing their early aggressive cards).  Spell Pierce likely trades for a card if used correctly.

You should most definitely be running Cryptic Command .  I'd say that you shouldn't be running any other counterspells mainboard.  I would rather pack extra removal over marginal counters.