All this speculation has been discussed before.
I've exchanged a couple of emails with
@Michael Cyger in the past and can say that he is genuinely a super nice guy.
In terms of his "domainer personality" .. I think what made him great was that he too considered himself as somewhat learning at the start of Sherpa (way before my time as a domainer unfortunately). His great personality just added to that.
My personal guess is that it wasn't even one single thing that led him to stop. I'm thinking he had a new unrelated project/opportunity that came with the sale of a big domain. Certainly all the conflict didn't help. But in the end I think he just felt it was time to move on.
Sherpa has been around for many years .. and while you'll hear a lot of people complain because some of the sherpa's
OPINIONS and PREDICTIONS didn't always turn out to be right, Domain Sherpa quite frankly is in my personal opinion
THE GREATEST TOOL AND SOURCE OF INFORMATION a new domainer can use to get up and running with a good grasp of what's what in the domain industry. Some great interviews .. and the reviews also offered tons of golden nuggets of amazing information.
Michael Cyger is quite a bit more active these days at Domain Name Academy helping his students in the DNA student forum. (Something to check out for any domainer looking to improve their skills and/or knowledge)
As for Domain Sherpa .. it should be starting up sooner than later. I know the plans that were mentioned back when it was bought was to have it relaunched around (or possibly even before) NamesCon. Obviously that could change as NamesCon is actually a pretty busy time for domainers .. But I'm quite confident we'll start to hear more in a matter of days/weeks, and not months.
Unfortunately because of a few people here at NamePros constantly attacking the new owner (on what I personally feel are completely far-fetched and undeserved accusations), I doubt we'll see much information officially posted here.
One big problem is that a lot of domainers didn't appreciate that the Sherpas are human and are not perfect .. some people here liked to take apart and dissect everything they each said word for word to find anything and everything not 100%. Which I personally think is just childish and stupid. As I've gotten better as a domainer even I, in my limited experience found myself strongly disagreeing with the occasional opinion here and there. But the truth of the matter is that there is no single domainer that is perfect at all aspects of domaining. The power of Domain Sherpa wasn't in the individual specific opinions .. but in the vast depth and array of opinions being shared to truly fill out many many aspects and details of domaining that might not be familiar to domainers both new and old. If you go back and relisten to the last couple years worth of Reviews and Interviews you'll end up with a significantly better understanding of the industry as a whole .. from there you take what works for you and move forward to your own drum.
I know
@Domain Shane has mentioned on his blog that he'll be participating in some way when it relaunches (I'm assuming the same way as before with the reviews .. but that's just me speculating).
As for the others ..
@Frank.Schilling was very regular for a while (particularly when I started listening) but kinda dropped off as a regular near the end, but not completely.
@Ali (Zandi) was coming on more and more.
@ikehook (Ike/Josh at DSAD) was also starting to reach celebrity status with his completely different take on domaining (and his Seals .. lol)
Adam
@strong also was on a little more often at the end (the apparent King of hyphens)
Some might assume Andrew will be the new host (including me) .. but I don't think I've seen anywhere that actually confirmed. In fact .. although ownership has changed, I don't think I've seen that Michael Cyger will not be participating. At the very least it would be amazing to have him participate in the reviews from time to time .. and most certainly be the interviewee for some of his own buys/sells.
I know we can expect at least some changes going forward .. what exactly they are will likely be pleasant surprises.
One thing I REALLY hope does not change is the length of reviews and interviews. Because of the extended format participants were really able to let go and go on tangents that actually led to loads of great information and opinions. Plus we were also treated so some super funny side stories like Fat Matt!
Of all the things there's only one little thing I'd change ... and that is having people submitting portfolios for review to also post the approximate purchase price/range of their domains and cost of renewals for ngTLD premiums. As both those numbers drastically change whether the submitter is doing a good job .. or a bad one.
I'm really looking forward to the relaunch .. I recommend anyone who hasn't listened to the older shows to go back as far as you can and listen to them all. I've listened to all of them from about mid 2014 multiple times now (it helps that I walk my little Dachshund
Steamie over 50km a week in Spring and Fall .. and way more than that in the Summer). It got to the point where I'd take him out at 3am on Mondays for a massive walk just to listen to the latest review as soon as it got posted.
Anyhow ..
Thank you @Michael Cyger for all the information you've made available to all of us!