I just felt a little in the dark when the site went down and mainly just needed someone to hold me. 
This is actually very understandable to me. I've considered asking nonnakip to implement some sort of IRC box similar to how BitFunder does it to avoid the need for any moderating. I just feel especially guilty asking nonnakip for anything right now, as I know the pool implementation and the transferring of seats to BTCTC members are currently taking up too much of nonnakip's time. I'm also not sure anyone would actually use it.
I will say that if the forum went down for any significant length of time, I would be reachable through IRC or the Bitcoin Reddit site.
Yes.
https://twitter.com/NastyMining and actually, this is the easiest and fastest way to reach me if the forum goes down. I am guilty of rarely logging into Reddit and usually only hop on IRC when I need to have a live conversation with someone.