well for those sites, the main KW are back, some long tails are still mia, but im sure they come back, afterall they were first page rankings.
IM isn't for the faint-hearted
It's only adapting after you view the results, and analysed what needs to be changed; such as
what went wrong,
what got hit and
what you need to improve on to stay in the game.
Otherwise, you just get hit over and over.
Not giving up is one trait, but continuing trying without knowing where you are trying to head is foolish and honestly, waste of time, experience and money.
blinding changing your ways to hope for the best is more gamble than adapting.