@Yep
Yes, that's right. Since HF7 was used for the network recovery, Zenith is moving to HF8. The numbering change shouldn't affect the work already done, and we hope progress continues as planned.
It's still too early to give an ETA. After what happened, we won't rush anything. Gateway Addresses will stay disabled until we've fully reassessed and audited that code without time pressure, and we're applying the same standard to Zenith and ZEL. The goal is to have everything fully audited, including by third parties, so it's as solid as we can make it before anything goes live.
You've laid out the sequencing trade-off well: Gateway v2 built against the long-term PoS consensus versus the delay that could mean for ZEL and the integrations that depend on it. We're not in a position to commit to an order yet. We'll share how that plays out, and what it means for the roadmap, in an official update rather than guessing here.