In reply to Justin.

several reasons Justin, first, I was just using this as an example to illustrate stalled development, there are many more examples but this was an obvious one because the code is just sitting there ready to be put into core

second, some things are better in core and other things in plugins. the dev team has agreed that this one falls into the former category but it is just sitting there gathering dust

third, some prefer to use as few plugins as possible to not overload their wordpress installs, why stack a plugin on top of another plugin when you don't have to?

fourth, they're 'catching flak' *because* the solution already exists!