Your questions are entirely reasonable, no apologies needed.

I had hoped to have the 1.12 update done already, but you know how life likes to occasionally mess with plans. >.> The only barrier to 1.12 now is confirming the transference of homes to a new plugin isn't going to be a total mess, which I have back in progress. Unless one of the current plugin developers decides to step things up, it looks unavoidable to lose granularity in home invites. Once the transference is more certain, a proper announcement/forewarning will be posted.
As the above doesn't yet come with a specific time estimate, Ateph may be regenerated in the next week or two using the current server version, just because I was supposed to have done that a couple months ago. *shakes fist at AC for breaking at start of heat wave* Once 1.12 (and then 1.13) is applied, a more fresh regen will be done so all the "new" goodies you should have access to will be available.

1.13 will eventually come, but it'd be surprising if it was doable before the end of the year. While Spigot (and forked projects) are faster than ever to build for the new Minecraft versions, it's still very risky for established servers to rush implementation. Given the breaking changes that have occurred with 1.13, the warnings about potential world corruption are currently worth treating as serious, not just obligatory fine text.