I have seen many friends from my server who went on Hiatus and then came back, they were able to catch up quite well. Of course, getting to be the top player in the server will be hard but not impossible. Power does saturate as you start to get to a point where it costs more resources to upgrade, which allows for other players to catch up! Just continue to do your dailies, focus on rebates whenever you use your resources, and always take advantage of stackable events.

~Jib

Again, it is not impossible. Plundering although beneficial is not everything. How you utilize your resources is one of the more important aspect in the game. You might not believe it or see it, but power increase does start to slow down as you get more power. During that time when the top players have slowed down in power gain, other players can start to catch up. There are considerable gains that one can achieve at lower power, that higher levels would need more resources to achieve at the same rate.

Of course, this is just my own opinion and experience =p The most important thing is learn to utilize resources, take advantage of rebate, take advantage of stackable events. If you ever have any questions, ask the community because they are a great bunch who are more than happy to help us =] Awesome bunch xD

~Jib