Agree with most of what you say aside from this bit. I find most similar systems are in the same ballpark in terms of being able to track what I care about.
Mainly:
- Is the ticket ready for me to work on? (Do I have the designs I need to work it?)
- Who is working on a given ticket right now?
- Am I done with a ticket?
- Is the ticket ready for QA?
- Did QA reject the ticket and I need to fix something on the ticket?
Pivotal does these things fairly well. There is also the obligatory pointing system, but the above is the bulk of what I care about. Pivotal also lets me create queries so I can zero in on the work which I'm doing as opposed to the entire project.