Why would you say it is dead? Where did you get the 2008 figure from? (Just wondering if theres an outdated page somewhere?)
On launchpad, you can see the versions panda has gone though, with the latest bug release in April this year: launchpad.net/panda3d/+series
Theres quite a bit of activity, if you take a look at the features in development forum: viewforum.php?f=9
Although I’m not sure what the roadmap is longterm is for releasing 1.9 or 2.0.
In regards to Minecraft, I’d say it’d be a fairly big challenge, but there are some code examples throughout that other people have done that might be a good starting point.
Eg: mInicraft (work in progress)