> Joyent, the current project stewards, have not been able to deliver a stable release in that time and don't share public plans / aren't communicating very much.

They probably don't want to publicly call out one of the core committers whose promised work is lagging. Or admit that the previous project lead was a poor choice who let it stagnate (but yet is inexplicably in the "Joyent did a bad job" camp). What good would that do anyone, apart from satisfy our boundless curiosity?