Yeah, it's kind of rude to make such pronouncements and then fail to fulfill them, but perhaps Burning Toad is so out of the loop that he hasn't even bothered to check on the pool's status since then, or even bothered to look at the forums to see everyone trashing him.  I'd assume he would have set up alerts to notify him of any catastrophic failure of the pool, and if he didn't, the pool really needs a more conscientious admin.  But since it doesn't seem like anything will happen soon, I'm tempted to just give up on Ars and cash out.  My miners are all happily hashing away on a different pool right now, but I have about 4.24 BTC sitting in the unpaid work queue on Ars, and I'd hate to just lose it.  I know it's not much, but I increased my donation level in November after BT said he was losing money on the venture because I wanted to help him out.  I guess I just donated another 4.24 BTC to the lost cause. 

Hey, I just checked the stats and realized that donation puts me in the list of the TOP 20 donors to ArsBitcoin!  You're welcome, BT!