I also logged in after several years of inactivity, just so I could post in this topic.
About a week ago, Tony P (Neopet's most visible support guy, I'd say) helped me out of a hacked account, and in return I let him know about this issue. I literally linked him this thread.
He told me he'd transfer this info to the DEV team.
Then, yesterday I figured I might as well try again, so I sent an email from neopets to one of my old Hotmail accounts and behold, the email arrived!
I kept testing with other emails, and it kept working from +- 6PM GMT+1 up until 10PM GMT+1, after which emails started bouncing / not arriving anymore. I tried with a VPN, with proxies, nothing. Same thing today (11AM GMT+1).
So either I was very lucky yesterday, or this just happens to be a timeframe where things open up for us, I don't know.
In any case, I thought I'd just let you guys know.