>The bad news is we got mostly screwed by ThePlanet, the old
>hosting company.

That is amazingly ####ty. Amazingly. I would have expected them to at least back up the data of your server before repurposing it, if for no other reason than to use it as a bargaining chip in an effort to recoup whatever money they think you owe them. If you delete all of someone's data, they really have no reason to pay you anything they might owe you.

Side question: What's the verdict on re-creating not-especially-prominent characters that may have existed before the purge? I don't want to have to write another role...