Hello @MockTurtle,
Regarding the lost data, the Afrihost server crashed. Even with the storage configured in RAID the data was not recoverable. From there, a lot of server reconstruction has taken place, including the DB now running in a cluster on three separate servers, all synchronized. This makes it really robust and also increases performance.
With all the changes in server infrastructure there were some growing pains along the way, and most likely there will be some going forward. But client feedback is really helpful and will help with fixing bugs that aren't caught before release.
You can recover the lost data since it's stored on the logger too. If you contact support they will help you out.
Extending on @platar86 comment on MQTT client, you can enable it when you navigate to the logger device and it's there in System Settings. There are people using it with Home Assistant from what I understand.
Regards, Henry