Links with more information about it are here:
http://zero-k.info/Forum/Thread/11386#114640Basically ZK needs to move forward fast to prepare for steam, when lobby server failed.
Abma maintains lobby server but instead of caring about player needs, he is more fixated on doing things "right" from intellectual standpoint. That made it very hard for some features like quickmatch to work properly, and this is something that is very unlikely to change anytime soon, while we need changes fast. There is my proposal to implement federation (to connect both servers using common protocol subset), but it's also not very liked by Abma so who knows...
Abma also moved lobby server to separate machine (from the ZK one) and didn't provide access.