I've submitted a few PR to LMS 8.0 for podcasts to improve the "last position" feature and to add a "recently played" item at the bottom of the podcasts list. They are now part of the 8.0 nightly.
Funny enough, the capability to track podcast progress is a very complicated one. I've just realized that when you enable direct streaming (or don't use my "reliable" plugin which forces proxied streaming), then tracking does not work. I've been scratching my head a lot to find a solution to that silly problem, but can't find any. So be aware that tracking requires proxied streaming as of today.
Funny enough, the capability to track podcast progress is a very complicated one. I've just realized that when you enable direct streaming (or don't use my "reliable" plugin which forces proxied streaming), then tracking does not work. I've been scratching my head a lot to find a solution to that silly problem, but can't find any. So be aware that tracking requires proxied streaming as of today.