On peakd there is a yellow and red box with a black blob in it, that is chat, it works nearly as well as discord, but it is private, no corporate overlords listening in.
I'm still active on discord, if you wanted to dm me there.

Records of powerups/downs are in the chain, peakd has a filter for them.

Yes, please powerup everything you can afford to powerup, the more you take from the pool the less centralized the governance.
Voting authors you support is the second half of powering up, it gets you 9% on top of the 3% staking rewards.
For a total of 12%.

Your hbd is safer in savings due to the three day lock, and it pays 20%, so I would sure recommend that move.