No ExpressionEngine isn't dead or abandoned, although it seems to have had a rocky road in the past year or so with some long term bugs not getting resolved, but it's still a strong commercial option. There's quite a few users who have voiced opinions (quite rightly), because of the direction and progress that EE has taken, that doesn't make it a bad CMS and it continues to be a leading commercial offering.
I've tried a lot of CMS's and although I favour Wordpress for "budget" sites, no other CMS allows for the freedom and unlimited scope as ExpressionEngine does. And that's why I continue to use it.
ExpressionEngine has a good grounding and large add-on library (http://devot-ee.com), although each project tends to have a license overhead now that I normally allow for around $500+ or more depending on the complexity. That's not to say you need that budget, but if you want all the bells and whistles and top quality build, or complexities such as multi-language, commerce, etc, you have to pay for it.
Both Statamic (http://statamic.com) and Craft (http://buildwithcraft.com) have been created from developers who have very strong background in EE and although I've not had a chance to use either, I expect them to be extremely good offerings, albeit still young projects.
