DreamWatch magazine has an article on Jeph Loeb's departure from the Buffy animated series to become a consulting producer for Smallville. Unfortunately, DreamWatch doesn't seem to update their website very often (their big splash is for issue #84. i'm referring to an article in #96).

the important part of the article is:

Joss Whedon reports that Loeb's departure just preceded final approval on the Buffy cartoon. The series' creator explains, "The process took so long to put the package together, it just came together on Friday [14 June], and he got an offer, a big deal over at Warner Brothers, and he had to move on."

Plans for the entirety of Buffy's cast to voice their cartoon characters have fallen through. "We have almost the entire cast signed on to do the voices," says Whedon, but he confesses, "Sarah [Michelle Gellar] and David [Boreanaz] are about the only cast members that can't be in it.

Describing the show, Whedon says, "Think of it as Buffy: Year One. We're going back to high school and telling the stories that we didn't get to tell back then."

so, to summarize: Buffy-animated did get final approval; SMG won't be participating (which we already knew). DB won't be either (which was still up in the air, as far as I knew. also, because it's going back to the time of the first season, also means no Spike). oh yeah. Jeff Loeb is now over at Smallville.