1) What changes took place in protocol(s) and what is the future of Bitshares/PTS?
Protoshares was rebranded to BitShares PTS about a year ago. The protocol remained unchanged until about 6 weeks ago, when BitShares-PTS was upgraded to a DPOS chain. Check out our forum at
http://ptstalk.org/ .
To be precise: the original PoW-chain still exists and is apparently still being mined by some people at a very low rate.
2) What happened to my shares? Do I deserve any new shares? If so, how do I claim them and my snapshot shares?
I only have access to old skool wallet.dat file and its keys.
Your old Protoshares (more precisely: the keys holding them) entitle you to BitShares (from the original genesis as well as in the form of a vested balance sharedropped later on DNS, PTS and VOTE holders). You can import your wallet.dat into the BitShares client to claim your shares. In the same way, you can import your wallet.dat into the new PTS client and claim your new PTS.
You will also receive shares in the upcoming Music and Play DACs, so keep your wallet.dat around.