Well it gets cleared if it is not confirmed after a specific time. The problem you had was that your first update did not contain enough qora (fee) and was therefore not confirmed. While you have unconfirmed txs that will not be confirmed your following txs will not be confirmed either (will get a bad signature). So unfortunately you need to wait till the "bad" txs are gone or restart with an older data folder.
so in theory, I should be good now? no open tx... should I just resubmit with a higher fee?
If you have no outgoing unconfirmed transactions try again with atleast fee of 2 for your website. Keep in mind that websites will be stored in the new namestorage after update, so you will need to recreate that page after release.
oh, didn't know that. thanks for the info, I have to backup my sites. any ETA on the update?