lol, what happened to the owner, did he get abducted by aliens? He used to be very active here on the forum and also if I remember things correctly he was trying to get into the bitcoin ASIC business as well (but that project flopped).

They had their opportunity when they were the biggest. The suspicious way the admins repeatedly avoid any discussions about modernising the pool suggested to me ages ago they had no interest in keeping up and are quite happy to let it quietly die off. They made enough BTC from the days it was the biggest and only reliable pool and were charging the highest fees.