I think there might be a higher number of work-in-progress patches these days, which represent ongoing collaborative efforts, and are not expected to be committed soon, but are registered to attract the attention of humans and robots. Perhaps if there were a separate status for that, it would be clearer. Or perhaps they don't belong in the "commit" fest.
I totally support this view on CF as a better way to track and process ongoing community activity in the one place than the mailing list. The fact is that complicated patches need many CFs to be reviewed, improved and committed. I'd vote for not-so-strict approach to what should be on CF and what should not. But probably some prioritization inside CF is indeed needed.