Could you point out exactly which applications are not getting the bug reports they need to carry forward?

This far, I disagree. While true with the noise, it's relatively easily filtered by having each applications open a thread in Applications, with [Announce]. Some don't even have that, no forum, no place to test, discuss, etc.

Right now, I'm subscribed to home threads of about 17 applications, but only 4 have been active in the last 14 days. This doesn't sound like lack of feedback to me. A lot of these applications were developed by people who either can't maintain an app, or have written a proof-of-concept to get something to work and the just stopped.

Can't blame them. Still, IMO, not THE problem. If it were up to me (since we're on the Maemo missteps), all applications published, including devel, should have their own thread automatically created, and the submitter notified. The thread should be a discussion and a bug report until package gets promoted and gets its own bugs account.