Alas we didn't make it work. I was ready to gloat over recovering your old account—probably got overconfident and jinxed it. Hopefully more information will resurface and we'll get it done another day.

Thank you for all your efforts and immediate attention, sorry that I couldn't make your job easier. What mattered the most was that I got a chance to have a brief chat with the actual human being behind the legendary HN username that makes everything run smoothly. Cheers, Daniel!