is this project still being actively developed?
Yes! Definitly, people are still working on it, but this is an open source project, everybody is free to join. The market is on track, but this should take perhaps weeks, not to say another month or more.
Certainly a Team member would be better qualified to answer and im sure they will.
What I've gathered is this.
I think there are around 10 Team members (many of whom are devs). 3-4 are working on the core and the others on UI, design, sites, exporers and whatever else (Im not a dev so dont really know). Unlike all the other members of the Team there is one who never appears in IRC or BCT, Technovert - the crytorgapher who worked with Ryno (lead dev) to architect/code ShadowSend.
Techno and Ryno are both South African and other team members hail from S.A, France and Finland and perhaps other countries too. I am not sure whether the Team has a single U.S dev. Personally I am gratified that Ryno and Techno are not living in the jurisdiction of the NSA.
I cannot speak to the Team's credentials but the work peaks volumes.
I sense a range of ages, some team members perhaps considerably older than others.
Ryno has referred to work in the financial world iirc, altho no details were of course mentioned.
He once mentioned in IRC of meeting up with old buddies to discuss the future of money and my overall feeling is that he's been coding for quite a time.
Off the top of my head Team members include (in no particular order):
Rynomster, Technovert, dasource, St3baS, ludx, ffmad, SebSebastian, crz, TrollsRoyce, Soepkip
(poosibly battbot and 00Smurf too - note sure)
Is it being actively developed? Yes
we just need to break the '40 000 sats mental limit', if it's done, we will go way higher (40k has never been broken)
Seriously? Is that globally for cryptocoins? That's interesting.
Each coin has a limit, but 40k is the shadow's one ^^
We've tested some times this without ever breaking it
Does the market have a release date yet?
Nope. I think we will have a better idea of the timeline for the first version in early April
SDC investor's dancing spring-summer 2015
thats a good one. a regular knee slapper. 
I'm very happy to finally see a move up, and it seems that its true that many people discovered SDC lately. Finger crossed, cause this is the best scenario...