No, I believe it is fair to say that it was a bit of a dead end. None of the early superconducting qubit technologies are in much use anymore; they haven been superseded by more modern topologies (usually based on transmons)
A vortex is "physical thing", it is a "ring" (with a core) of quantised magnetic flux (google "image of Abricosov vortices") which can be imaged if you use the right type of microscope.
"Fluxons" is a more abstract term which typically refers to some form of quantised flux in a circuit.
There is a range of different types of qubits with charge qubits (tunnelling Cooper pairs) at one end and flux qubits at the other (tunnelling flux). Modern qubits sit somewhere closer to the middle of this range.
The "Fluxonium" is is an example of a modern flux-based design which looks promising, there are also more complicated versions such as the "heavy fluxonium" which is quite recent.