They experimented with custom gui, some things were good but some not. I Didn't saw those modifications in bitshares official repos. Probably someone finally noticed them that new chart is not useful at all, sot they were forced to revert changes. I don't know who is working with Openledger GUI, but he/she is going in good direction. Second thing, their api server is not enough for growing load. If you following #bitshares tag and bitsharestalk.org, you should be aware that 2 new api servers provided by btsabc and transwiser are ready to go. Changes are already merged:
https://github.com/cryptonomex/graphene-ui/commit/70578d94f494dd54f9eddc19121fb55dbfec212c
Most time when they pushing changes i must reload page with ctrl+r in my browser.
Trollbox never worked good - it's a p2p chat. Users online = peers connected to you, so you can write with them. This leads to funny things. I have disabled it long time ago.
A lot of trading going on because BTC moves.
Cryptofresh is down :).
Maybe Ddos, i don't know.
To improve your experience and security i suggest using light-client which has the same functionality.