My guess on these events is that they will be similar to HC8, find the dragon horde chests, since that season was more of an event than an HC season in my book. I am a little hopeful that I do not have to take time off work just to participate, but I suspect that most of the event will take place during normal work hours (for me) and not on weekends (like the Illithid Invasion).
As for HC, I agree that they have not said HC is nevermore, so I suspect /hope that it is just on pause. Nothing else I can do about it. I was really looking forward to HC 10 since it would be a milestone, but oh well. HC is not very challenging anyways, but it is enormous fun mostly because of people from different servers.