Not dead yet, but it isn't healthy either.

It is still being mined, the difficulty is much lower than it was so that means miners are leaving. (varies from about 800 to 1500 many times throughout the day.)  In a few weeks the block awards will be cut from 180 to 90 and probably more will give up on trying to mine this dog.   It is out of balance.   If there were lots of transactions then there could be transaction fees that make up the difference but so far there isn't really anything that can be done with the coin.  That is why you need lots of miners that want to see the coin succeed.   Once all the miners are gone, there won't be any new blocks or transactions.       

I don't think this was the intent.   I also don't believe the line about miners having too much control, that is complete and utter nonsense.   If anything is to be learned it is that this pseudo-instamine that was used here with the first 10,000 blocks getting 1/2 of all the coins, isn't a healthy approach.