Rediscovering PS2 modding after 7 years---where do I restart?

I got an old SCPH-30001, A PS2 Network/HDD adapter and an old IDE hard drive.
In 2005, my PS2 laser died and I started to play with soft-mods to see if I could play my games from a hard drive.

IIRC, I somehow got a softmod onto the memory card... when it boots, it goes into PS2Menu 2.6b
From there, I can F T P into the mc, and I think HDD.. run HDLoader, etc.

Compatibility sucks, I never got most games working right and the whole thing is a bust TBH.

I want to accomplish a few things, I need answers and/or instructions to do the following, and I do not know where to post it.

#1 - Is there an upgrade to PS2Menu 2.6b?
*I think all I'd do is make sure there was a boot. elf in the BOOT dir of the MC..*
But I don't have the magic swap discs anymore, I do not want to break this mod, but PS2menu is clunky as hell.*

#2 - openps2loader is the reason why I am here. Does it ALWAYS require a USB or SMB windows share to run games?

#3 - Is there a PSOne network streaming / hdd option available?

#4 - Better FTP program, or is EXECFTP the defacto standard?

#5 - Anything else cool that's been developed over the last 7-8 years that can give me some life back into this glorious machine?

Thank you in advance!

1 best bet is FMCB
2 OPL works for internal HD USB and SMB and no you can use one of any or all together :)
3 well their is emulator that allows PS1 but is it spotty
4 with PS2 games WinHIIP_V1.7.6 for internal is used or hdl_dump of some kind to FTP for like your own partion or MC is ok but I use RadHostClient.exe
5 Yea a lot but mostly PS2 compatibility is high for OPL their is some emulators too and SMS player to run avi movies ;)