One problem: people who abandon projects don't usually take the time to come back to the site and mark the project as "Abandoned". So there're actually a lot of projects which are abandoned or obsolete / superseded which continue to be marked as active, completed, working, etc. Like catalog grid display, for example, which has been in core since November - but people are still trying to use it.

I don't have a solution at this time, other than active management of the contribs.