Yes, FV is still alive and kicking. They opened up inbound transfers, so there is some new blood, and a good number of past players are returning and having loads of fun. Just look in this forum, and you'll see Itchi, Sulissa, and more have returned to Norrath. I've always enjoyed the content --- there's so much more to EQ than grinding, even if that's what many people enjoy doing. Dig into the lore and the quests, and you'll easily find enough material to keep yourself entertained.

There is still some raiding going on. Planar Campaign and Fire and Fury are still both actively hunting, and I know there are some pickup raids by other members of the community. While there are some European players, I don't believe there is any Euro-timed raiding at this time.

Unfortunately, it's likely that the name "Steelhawk" is still in use --- unless the character has been specifically deleted, the name is taken even if the account is not active. Since the toon is level 85 and was in Intuition, it's likely still in the database. You can check on your other friends by punching their names into eqplayers.com to see when they were last online. If they don't show at all, they haven't been online since EQplayers went live about three years ago.

Just as a warning note: let this be the only time you mention anything about EQ servers other than the official ones. Emulators aren't legal, no matter how they might try to get around the rules.

--Thomen