I can answer the first part of your question how I see it.
The list has been cut similarly before. So far none of those folks have reappeared. If they do come back, well yay! Welcome back. If they are gone it seems reasonable for them to be off the list.
I just made a bigger deal of this cut because the state of the world plus Blockchain upheaval.
Some of the people that would come off this time haven’t posted or commented in a year. All of the people who I proposed removing have not used hive. So why inflate our numbers? Also, as we are on a new(ish) blockchain it seems nice to have a fresh start.
Discord has some of the layering you mention. It is a bit of a pain. 1. Not everyone is on discord. 2. Not everyone’s user names match from blockchain to discord. Right now discord has roles for members, admins, mods, VG has a role for putting out the nomination posts.
As for your questions related to the ssg-community account, I appreciate you asking. I don’t have involvement with the bot so don’t have real answers. I am pretty sure for now that the bot is still doing its thing on steem like it does on hive. @welshstacker would have more info. I know Blurt is a whole other crazy beast no one has really figured out yet.