We wouldn't necessarily need to make VIP status cost the same as it did in 2011 in terms of fiat as $50 would not go as far as it would today since there are many more users using the forum's resources today.
I would suggest to maybe lower the price for VIP status to maybe $500 or $1,000 as this would probably pay for the same amount of bandwidth and hosting in terms of time.
This has been discussed countless times already, and theymos' answer is a "no".
I said a long time ago that the prices would remain the same, so I can't change this policy now in any case.
Are the new ranks' price going to be variable or adjusted every x days or months depending on BTC price?
Maybe. I haven't thought about it much yet. The forum doesn't need donations, so I'm not going to create another donator level soon.
is there a place that users can view the forums current financial status (like the monthly income, likely from advertising, expenses, and assets and liabilities if applicable)?