I would really like some information too - its ridiculous.   

I was able to login just now, however my balance is not showed anywhere.

I have full understanding for system breakdowns and it takes some time to get em online.
But I have to criticize BIPS for the lack of information, a small status update once in a while would be highly appreciated, I believe the homepage had one with the last 24 hours.
I have so far not read "Your coins are safe", am I the only one with this concern? 

True stuff.

If you are in a lot trouble - don't panic. When you get adrenaline in your body, the body goes into "survival mode" and rational think is disabled. I have seen people miss their plane because a gate was changed, and they start running in the wrong direction.

I am happy that you retrieved your stash.
Plus you learn a valuable lesson about storing bitcoin that will benifit you in the future.

I was also "late", since I only started in 2012.

My best advice is to ramp up your holding, start buying small amounts on a regular basis, lets say $10 worth of BTC every week regardless of the rate (or whatever your budget allow).
In this way will you average out the fluctuation that BTC have, one week you would buy for $700, next week it might be $400, in average it do not matter. Then stick to this strategy even when the rate is high, I know that it can be painful to buy at a high rate, I remember first time i bought for a rate over $100, that was hard, but today when I look back, then $100 was a good deal. Stop buying only when your holding is where you want it to be. In this way (as a newbee), will you slowly learn the market, and even more important you will learn how to "handle" your coins, transfer, storing ect.

This is extremely important: find out how you want to store your coins, and don't put all the eggs in one basket so to say.
Have 4-5 different methods (normal qt wallet, "paper" wallets, online wallets ect), make sure that if you get compromised, then will you not lose all the coins at once.
Online wallets is by principle not a good way to store coins, but they give easy access, therefor is it a good idea to have a small amount online, similar to having some cash in your regular wallet (very few people carry their entire life saveing in your back pocket). But the bulk of you holding should be in "cold storage" (not connected to the internet in any way).

And listen to the advice about that you should be ready to lose your investment, that is the name of the game by any investors. The BTC could drop below $1 dollar again, no one knows.

Good luck sir.

About the complains about the newbee restrictions - I don't really see the problem.
Stay online for 4 hours and make some post some. Once you are over the restriction, it better for everyone, It will really keep spamers away. I "think" the tone on this forum is much more clean than other forums where any 14y kid can make profile and ruin things for others.

I have followed the thread:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=252308.msg3639165#msg3639165

However as Newbee I am not allowed to post there, I don't know if you can really call me newbee, I have done research on the topic (bitcoin) as a master student and wrote a couple scientific paper on the subject information security / bitcoin, beside I have build a FPGA miner as a hobby project (including the HDL design)... anyway I understand and respect that bitcointalk.org has the newbee politic.

Back to the topic:
I can understand that BIPS has been under a massive DDoS attack, and I have heard that their server has been completely wiped out.
Do anybody have more information beside what you can read in the thread posted?
Like many other, I am starting to be a bit worried - 4 days of down-time, that is more than what you can normally expect (imo). 
The big question: is anybody going to have loss of BTC?

It also depend on your location, in Scandinavia then is bitcoinnordic a ok choice.

I have used them, they cashout fast and I had no problem whatsoever, the exchange rate is reasonable too.