Bitshares community seems active on it's own. I think Dan focusing on other projects was good for Bitshares and I make my point by saying the gears are still turning.

Listen to the BeyondBitshares. You'll hear about PeerPlays, Peertracks, and BlockPay that just went live. Look at like worker proposals on the BTS ecosystem with workers like @chris4210 for website re-designs.

There's a lot of fud out there (and hype for that matter). But I don't think BTS is dead just yet. ;)