Silver to gold and back again

This is another slightly different question that I can't find the answer to in this thread or elsewhere.

My subscription lapsed a few months ago and I recently came back and logged on to find I was at Silver level. Now I don't mind that at all. SOE has gotten plenty of money from me for EQ since release until about a year ago, SWG from release for quite awhile, and EQ2 since release until a few months ago).

I vaguely remember something about this dropping to silver, but now I'm wondering what happens when I have more time to play and resubcribe to gold for awhile. Will my account still drop to Silver level when I get busy again and let the subscription lapse again for awhile. The time element comes in because my characters are all crafters who used to sell on the broker. However, that's a lot of lower ticket items that don't make sense to specifically pay cash to sell. When I'm busy I don't do the crafting thing so much, so lapsing back to silver would be great. I'm just not sure if that lapsing to silver is a permanent thing for old subscribers or was a one time thing that would disappear if I resubscribed and lapsed again.

I did (I think) get an answer to one other question I had. It sounds like if, as a Silver, I buy 2 extra character slots, those would stay with me and permanently add +2 to whatever level I am currently at.

I'm happy to go along with whatever scheme keeps more players happy and, in turn, keeps SOE happy. It just confuses me!

P.s. sorry for resurrecting the thread. I found it during a search for an answer and then posted here without remembering to check the date.