Yes, there are still people using the protocol. I was away from it for a few years and just this past spring/summer I got back on the bus looking for SE-era software. I found Higher Intellect - which has been around forever - and a few ok ones. Next thing I looked for was Tracker-Tracker and was amazed that it was finally gone. Some of the people here run servers from time to time.
One cool thing about "the scene" having died down is that a majority of those crap sites hoping to make cash off of membership for "w4r3z" have died off or moved to other pastures. It always hurt when I would finally find some cool little 1MB app of completely obscure academic weirdness, or a driver I needed, and it would be hosted on one of those greedy outfits, where I wasn't going to jump through hoops for it. You can probably find a higher percentage of servers run by actual enthusiasts, but they are a bit harder to find.
