I think this is the case with boost.lockfree. It is not easy to implement it without atomics, and there are no atomics for the C++03 (yet).
I already suggested that Tim add Lockfree to trunk with only C++11 support, so you're arguing against the wind, I guess.
And thus begins the downfall.
One library will start to depend on Lockfree, and soon it's all a right mess of trying to get anything to work on a perfectly conformant C++03 compiler.
Apologies for not following this discussion in full - but Boost has *always* pushed the compiler envelope. Right from the start libraries required C++98 features that at the time were implemented in very few compilers. It's not new for a library to be at the bleeding edge waiting for it's time to come. John.