Transparency would indeed at least help to plan your short-term future accordingly
Only just today, I discovered these Excel sheets that track the progress of individual cases... If I understand correctly, it seems from my April group, 80-85% have received approval ("Passport request"), from the May group 75% and from June over 50%. However, if you have been waiting for more than 6 months, you're bound to have to sit it out for a while. From my April 7-14 group, only about 2-3 out of 10-15 have received a positive response in the two months following the 6-month deadline. The only explanation I can think of is that they are waiting for information from other sources and they are not pushing enough for this information to be received on time. I have requested the notes (GMCS or something?) to figure out whatever the real reason is... If there is a blatant mistake, I am going to talk with a lawyer.