Yeah, my GRE is about 7 years old, so if it is required I will need to retake. I am only looking at Duke, UVA, and Northwestern in the T14, I am assuming it will be a rarer requirement outside of that.
I think you should be weary when admissions say optional. When they say "optional", I don't think it usually is. I'd say write it unless you really can't think of anything and what you're writing sounds forced and insincere.
One really strong optional is better than one really strong optional plus one mediocre optional. If only one of the optional prompts speaks to you, only write that one.
I'm not sure if I went to the right sites, but there are some that don't match up, for example I can't find optional essays on Cornell's sight, though I saw them on the link presented above@@ Does anyone have similar questions?