There is much truth in what you say, my trusted friend (John). I've always thought of the modules as a learning tool, which helps me understand some of the methods being used in the Core Framework. The modules may not be as good or updated as frequently as we like, but they are a good tool for developers, and I doubt that many other 3rd party modules would have been developed had these examples not been available. Some of the 3rd party modules still have code from these modules in them.
I'm just as frustrated as the next person with the slow progress on some of the built-in modules, but I understand that the DNN Framework IS the focus for the most part. It's hard on the Core Team to focus on the modules with the attention placed on the framework. As you mentioned, DNN's modules are mostly efforts of active DNN members with some oversight by the Core Team, so the focus is in the right place, as far as the Core Team's efforts go.
If anything, the Project teams need to step up the pace, but even that is difficult with the time it takes to test and integrate with new DNN framework updates. All said, I'd prefer, at least more communication on the status of these projects throught the project Blogs, rather than in the forums in answer to a project forum post. The posts come so fast that many communication responses are lost, unless you go through a lot of pages.
But, I digress, and I've said it all before. Just can't help it...