nice coin, but it seems impossible to sync without bootstrap...
Yes, the coin could use some maintenance, but nobody wants to do it.
The only thing that needs to happen is HBN users quit microstaking small amounts which is what is killing the sync with orphans.
If everyone would just use coin control, to correct the orphan issue the network would run smoothly.
Combine your coins into blocks of a minimum of 5000 or 6000 HBN per Block and sync will return to normal.

A great feature to add would be auto combine.
This feature doesn't need to be added because it's already there.
At your console prompt type: 'splitthreshold 1000' and blocks won't split any more when they are smaller than 1000.
You can choose any threshold you like as long as it is smaller then the total amount you own on that address divided by 500
So in order to use 1000 as a splitthreshold you need at least 500x1000= 500.000 HBN
As you understand, this is a perk for people who own a lot of HBN because the big wallets provide most of the safety for the HBN blockchain.
So everyone who is tired of manually combining, buy more HBN and let it handle itself. It's not that HBN is very expensive right now..
BTW, the same thing goes for 'combinethreshold 1000' to combine smaller blocks when they stake. This one goes as far as your stash divided by 250.
Cheers!