Well... the friend list/guild chat thing has been resolved. It got fixed in the middle of the OX event (a week or so before Halloween). There was a bug going on with homestead where you couldn't access it and received a ticket for creating one. We can access our homesteads again, but if you received a ticket to create a homestead, you're stuck with it until Nexon gets to fixing that in their to-do list.
I've received no word from Fortune in ages but I'm sure she's fine. I see her online every now and then on her main. Jugi's online pretty often while still getting along with his studies. If you see him online, be sure to shoot him a hello or something.
Aside from that, good to hear you are considering coming back, probably sucks finding time with school and whatnot.