The new Haruhi novel and the Summer season animes really preoccupied me these few weeks :x
@ Above:
1. It is still popular, with SnS popping up in quite a few Newtype polls, as far as I know of. Well the Astonishment of Suzumiya Haruhi dethroned everything when it was released, so...
2. The Chinese translators are, trust me, really active. They covered all the volumes so far as I know. The translations they did are pretty good too, if you are fluent in Chinese
3. It is at stand-still, both the novel and the would be Season 3 of the anime.
4. Everything up until around 14 (?), except for the volume with the Mathilde arc, can't remember which. Can't remember much about anything except the characters and plot, I read the latest volume a few months ago ><
Hope this helps.