I think there's a lot of good will and good intention in many organization training / learning groups, but that doesn't always get translated into real performance improvement on the job.

More than one training department has started calling itself learning with no more real change in its outlook than the first word in the title.

Which is why a lot of them have been ignored anyway.

My experience with large organizations suggests that the formal training/learning groups tend to cluster around generic "soft skills" (effective meetings, the inevitable brainstorming) or around events targeted at mid-to-upper management (like GE's Crotonville courses).

What they could be doing, as you suggest, is working with line organizations, possibly sharing useful ideas about how people learn or about collecting and reflecting on data (to help minimize flavor-of-the-month fads to which those line organizations are no more immune than T&D is).