I'm still pretty into it, although I'm refereeing now on the national tournament series. Its far too expensive and time consuming to travel all around the country and play these events plus practicing each weekend (it's very competitive now, gone are the days of drinking at night and playing hungover). So reffing still allows me to travel to these events and see all of my friends still in the sport (now mostly other ref's or working in the industry at various companies). Plus I get to travel around the country with a group of good friends and still come home with a couple bucks, or at the very least a free vacation!

The big American league now is the Paintball Sports Promotion (PSP) league, the flagship being 5v5 Race-To-7 format. Think very fast paced games and the first one to win 7 times wins the match.

I believe that the NPPL is taking a hiatus for a year, if they come back at all, they've barely been able to stay afloat for a while now. From what I've heard it's been due to poor financial decision making on the leagues behalf.

As far as the markers go, most of them are now based off of the Matrix or Intimidator designs from your link, with a couple using the Hollowpoint design (at least in the tournament series). They've also begun limiting the Rate of Fire in the PSP, being 10.2 shots per second in the professional divisions to remove any advantages of higher prices markers.

All in all its still a pretty cool sport. I've met tons of great people through it, and many life-long friends. Hopefully it gets back to where it used to be in the early 00's, it's definitely been growing the last few years after the hit it took around 2008.