Good to hear from you, Dread.  After reading your post, like so many others before it, I'm thinking you should utilize your time away from the game wisely to write some bookage!  Get published! :)  I loved your post.

More than likely I'll still be around if/when you missing peeps return - I want to at least give FSE until the end of the summer and more than likely a bit longer.  I'm just fiddling away with trying to get Carn's tanking gear ready for a hSeth run (still working on Cenarion rep as I've noted elsewhere) and am working toward Kray's next 100 badge purchase.  Both these things should keep me busy and interested enough to keep things going for now.  And I still want to get Prora and Dahria to 70, though that's taken a back seat of late.  Xhakum is sorely undergeared, but that's at the bottom of the list I think.  As long as I can stay interested in these goals, yeah, I'll still be around for a bit. :)