In answer to the first post’s question:
Where can I research **current** demographics information on Orthodox Judaism?
One of the best informed researchers on this topic is Dr. Ira M. Sheskin:
Dr. Ira M. Sheskin is the Director of the Jewish Demography Project of the Sue and Leonard Miller Center for Contemporary Judaic Studies at the University of Miami.
Then Marvin Schick of Avi Chai published (in 2009) a census of Jewish Day Schools in North America.
Someone else had the idea of counting the number of chassidim in the US by looking at US Census numbers for families whose primary language is Yiddish and who have small kids.
There is also the North American Jewish Data Bank.