I think one area where we are failing is to get them really finished - and reviewed. This is partly
because it is difficult (nay impossible) to stop people biting off more than they can chew in the really very limited time available. It might be better to use GSoC to finished existing projects, especially those that have been reviewed and accepted but need final polishing, testing and documenting? (The latter might well be done by someone who didn't write the original stuff - and thus 'knows too much'). This obviously needs the active support of the original author, but if he doesn't have time, then this should be welcome.
From an outside point of view, i do agree. I don't see a lot of Boost GSOC
projects completed. And that's really disapointing. In my fileds of interests, i would love to see some libraries integrated that deals with : - large integer / large fixed point computation - json parser/ writer - xml parser/ writer like pugiwml - crossplatform async file io for boost asio (not only for windows) - xmpp/sip stack