Deferred implies more strongly that the team has looked into it with an ambivalent level of consideration. As opposed, something without a status tag may simply be glanced at or not yet addressed.

The most important thing you can do to help support old feature requests is *upvote* them. The [reqs tab](http://meta.stackoverflow.com/?tab=requests) is around to basically mirror the process that the team uses in deciding what might be important to look at. They are more likely to spend time looking into a feature that has some level of community support. This has been repeatedly stressed by the Team at various points.

Really, this is sometimes more useful than paying heed to the status tags. Even officially declined requests may [end up implemented](http://meta.stackoverflow.com/posts/36049/revisions) [after reconsideration](http://meta.stackoverflow.com/posts/55632/revisions). The important thing is to give good reason for reconsideration - bump it with an answer that provides additional data in addition to upvoting it. If you can bring enough support to the idea, it increases the chances that it will get looked at.

There are some subtle clues you can look for, also. Maybe the things in [Jeff Atwood's favorites](http://meta.stackoverflow.com/users/1?tab=favorites#tab-top "Skipping, of course, the obvious joke questions") are being looked at despite the lack of a tag. Also check for comments by team members. One of the better methods of judgment of whether a particular unaddressed feature may be declined instead of merely deferred is to look at all of the discussion in it - does it sound more convincing that it is a waste of time or not worth the effort?