Yes, the console is back and will remain in some form or another. I have been working on integrating new features into FGF as school has started to wind down for the semester. The below shot is of the current build of Foxhorn which includes LAN and Live session creation, search and join through the console (The new build of the GUI library is not ready for testing yet).
Right now I am testing a few features being built into Thrust for the next release including the ability to log and share data between people playing a game on Live. The goal is to abstract the idea of a high scores sharing component to be able to share anything. The next release of Thrust will come with two things to share: high scores and error reports. While high scores will be a liberal thing to hand out, error reports will be setup in a client / server manner where only one server exists and is only connected to when a) it is up and running and b) the client wants to or can (ie the game detects he/she is idle in the menus).
