Regenerative phenomena were introduced some forty years ago to address problems in the theory of continuous-time Markov processes. The early work in the theory left a number of difficult unsolved problems, in the classification of $p$-functions, oscillation and inequalities, the multiplicative theory, and the theory of unbounded semi-$p$-functions. Recent years have shown progress on all of these fronts, and this paper surveys these results, while drawing attention to significant problems that remain open.