I doubt site staff check here much but I'm going to throw out my opinion, coming from my zero experience running a pet site aside from art.
It seems like communication is the biggest issue. Of course us players aren't entitled to anything, but it would be great to know what's going on and to put speculation to rest. Maybe even a volunteer could make the social media posts. They could be as simple as "We were unable to get much done this [time period]. Our current aim is [whatever function]. Just something to know that the coder(s) is still there.
Maybe a Kickstarter or Patreon could help? Then staff would be able to hire people to work when they can't. It'd also boost interest in the site again. Lorwolf had a pretty successful KS recently, so it wouldn't be unprecedented. Not sure about others, but I'd be 100% interested in paying to get Eldemore back.