There's quite a few, but since they're set aside for esoteric weirdos who should just go on IRC, they're presumably on borrowed time as far as you're concerned.

Not with the same characteristics. Either they are limited on power, limited on range, equipment is very expensive, or are heavily impacted by solar / weather.

Nah. 2m is an excellent general purpose, medium-range communications band. The next closest bands on either end are 6m and 70cm, both of which have different characteristics (70cm doesn't do well with buildings, and 6m is too long for good handheld antennas).