I also would like project teams to sometimes be more active than they are, and there are many instances where the core team does not communicate as much as we should, but I can say without question that the situation is considerably improved over one and two years ago. The fact that you can even see the release tracker just proves the point.
Most of the people on the team work on their own time during the evenings and weekends. They often do so at the expense of spending more time with their families or otherwise working on paying opportunities. They do so because they love what they do and they are commited to the project. But the reality is that sometimes things in life change and the free time you had last month is just not there this month. Babies are born, people get sick, work situations change and life goes on.
At least once a year (although we working to make it to occur twice a year) we will evaluate the entire team - from project leads all the way to trustees. At that point we determine if it is time to ask someone to retire or offer to promote an individual to one of the trusted positions on the broader team. It has been suggested that there are lots of people willing to help by stepping up to fill the various needs on the project teams, but the reality is that while many people have offered help, few people have actually followed through on their offers. That is not to say that the offers weren't genuine, but it is often the case that life happens and people are not able to dedicate the time they thought they had available. I have had the pleasure to work with many wonderful people over the last 4 years on the project. These people were very sincere in their efforts but things happened and they could no longer dedicate the time needed to work on the project. Sometimes that happened after a couple of years, sometimes it happened between the time they made the offer to help and when it actually became time to start coding. This is just a fact of life on an Open Source project.
One thing to keep in mind if you want to help - project leads and core team members do read the forums. The tone and tenor of your posts in the forums will affect the willingness of people to answer your posts or to invite you to join their team. I am sure that everyone has worked with someone who was "unpleasant". It is usually not a great experience. So it should come as no surprise that if you are "unpleasant" in the forums, that people will be hesitant to want to voluntarily work with you.