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The Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting (3e) was a supplement published in 2001. Then, in 2003, D&D 3.5e was released… I have been waiting for a 3.5 version of the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting or an update.
Was the FRCS abandoned? I know that there was not much in the way of actual rules in the 3e version to update. Is it still "good" for 3.5 play?
Was there any official notice from WOTC why that and other supplements weren't re-released as 3.5?
Wizards hasn't published a “campaign setting” book for the Forgotten Realms for 5th edition. (Yet?) There material scattered through several books — the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide, plus all the hardcover adventures except Curse of Strahd — but no definitive campaign setting book like we've seen in past years. Information scattered across multiple sources like that, and being only a small fraction of what a campaign setting for the Realms normally covers, makes that an unsatisfactory source.
Until a proper campaign setting is published, there's only the old campaign setting guides to really go from, plus the bits and pieces of updates scattered across various 5e products. Ironically, the fan-maintained wiki is the most up-to-date source for the Realms after the Second Sundering (i.e., the D&D 5th edition era).
If you're looking for setting material, I'd say… probably not the adventures? That would be so much material to sift through for just a few bits of lore. What you'd get would be very detailed for some small parts of the Realms.
The SCAG is a better prospect, as it's closer to being a setting guide. Limited as its geographical scope is, it may be worth it if you intend to adventure mainly on the Sword Coast. (And the Sword Coast is thousands of miles long, so that's not as limited as it could be.) I'd say you should leaf through it if you get a chance to see a physical copy — or look for reviews of SCAG that give you a feel for what it covers and how deeply — and make a decision then.
You can find a bit of reference in the article "Villains: Cult of the Black Earth" on the D&D website.
It contains a few images of Marlos Unrayle (a male medusa from the Princes of the Apocalypse adventure), including a full-body one:
Best Answer
They didn’t re-release any supplements. The core books—Player’s Handbook, Dungeon Master’s Guide, and Monster Manual—are the only books that got re-released in 3.5e. For the rest, the official rules have guidelines for updating 3e content to 3.5e, and then specific updates were printed in web articles, Dragon magazine articles, or later published 3.5e books. The only supplement that kind of got “re-released” was the 3e Psionics Handbook, which got “updated” (read: entirely replaced) by the 3.5e Expanded Psionics Handbook. And anyway, psionics’ inclusion in the d20 System SRD made them kinda-sorta core.
The primary 3.5e Forgotten Realms book is Player’s Guide to Faerûn. It includes 3.5e updates for some Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting content. Other 3.5e Forgotten Realms books include Underdark,¹ Serpent Kingdoms, Shining South, Lost Empires of Faerûn, Champions of Ruin, Champions of Valor, Power of Faerûn, Dragons of Faerûn, and Grand History of the Realms. The Champions books are particularly high-quality, in my opinion.² Also, an honorable mention to Tome of Magic, since many of the vestiges bound by that book’s binder class reference Forgotten Realms lore (e.g. one is Karsus).
Not to be confused with the setting-agnostic 3.5e supplement Drow of the Underdark. Of course, Drow of the Underdark is still compatible with the Forgotten Realms, it’s just not specific to them.
The quality of the Champions books is notable because, in my opinion, the quality of most Forgotten Realms books is awful. Serpent Kingdoms is probably the most problematic book in the entire edition, and that’s saying something when you put it up against, say, Savage Species, which wasn’t even meant to be a D&D book at all and got shoved into D&D when its own product line was scrapped.