Praetorian, I think you should go into the business of improving those immigration trackers!
Just when I thought we were set for our vacation immigration-wise, now it looks like my wife's passport renewal (due to name change) might take longer to process than we thought.
There's a 10-12 week processing estimate for US passports from the DOS, but hers is taking 14 weeks already (we are a little more than 3 weeks away from our vacation).
Inofficial estimates I've seen are 14-18 weeks, so if you are planning to travel with your spouse and he or she still needs to get a passport, don't believe the 10-12 week time frame that DOS claims. In travel forums I now see suggestions for people to request expediting ($60 more) even if their trip is three to four months away.
What's worse is that apparently it doesn't work the way it does with our immigration applications, where they are processed in the order they arrive, and those of us with similar ND's have similar time lines. I read many stories of folks sending their regular-processing passport app's in June who are getting them now, while those who applied in March or April are still waiting. Maybe DOS decided it's better to piss fewer people off, leave the old filers behind and tend to the newer filers.
The moral of the story is that DOS should look at USCIS as an example of a better processing structure, and that's a sad thing to say.