She is back--she was filming the web soap Venice (Crystal Chappell--ex Maggie Carpenter from OLTL--soap, and roles on Days and Guiding Light.) I'm not really a fan of those webseries, so I seriously questioned HBS's priorities, but
I really wish Robin Strasser had made it as well--she tweeted that she was stuck at home after wrecking her back (she's had some serious back issues for a while--one reason we didn't see Dorian in the finale.) It doesn't quite feel like OLTL without Dorian being there beside Vicki. Other known contract roles include Rama Petal (Vimal, her husband, is on recurring) and for the first batch of episodes, Roger H of course as Todd.
It was harder to get the OLTL cast together because they don't start filming till next week (I was wrong about this week) and the shots were taken when AMC had already started filming.
I like that the press releases emphasize the point that they think they'll be able to do stronger storylines than they could with all the ABC network interference the last decade or so. I also like that they're already selling both shows as having a kinda different feel--OLTL used to always be a more urban and darker show than AMC, but under ABC daytime head Brian Frons he increasingly tried to package the soaps as being all similar to each other.