Are the developers active?

I doubt you will see any significant change to global HQ any time soon. The problem with it is not something that can be done in a reasonable amount of time from a players perspective. As a developer myself the system they have in place is not able to handle the activity it encurs. And as such that is why we as players percieve the problems we have.

The key to gaining simoleons is utilizing all of the available ways of getting them. Coin popup, building upgrades, freight ship, selling stuff to others. And if you have the patience buy and resell in the global HQ. Destroy 2 or 3 buildings if you have no more upgrades to do. You should be getting plenty of simoleons if you are doing most of these things.

As for the friends system I don't use it so I can't comment there. And news/announcements it is my experience that most game companies don't say much about anything until the content is either on the verge of release or released. I don't know what EAs medium for releasing info is but it most definately doesn't appear to be the forum. It is one complaint I have of just about every game company out there. They want to use obsure places like facebook, twitter, etc to make announcements when they have an official cite that should be where that stuff is put. And I'm simply assuming that if they are announcing any info at all it must be in some 3rd party medium.

And for your last bullet point. Buying readily obtainable game currency for real world cash is not the way to spend money on a game if you decide to spend money on a game. Designers know this and they make the exchange rate the way they do because of that reason. They know if you are lazy enough to not take the little effort in the game to earn the currency then you are going to be willing to pay the rate to buy it. But rather than have that minority of players complain they can't buy currency they include it to make them happly. My advice is take the time to earn simoleons in game.