Currently, using status tags is a good way to model the different stages for a feature request. See this topic for a general discussion. We also use the voting plugin in this way.
However, one thing is sadly missing - while you can easily filter for different tags, the “Votes” sorting button disappears as soon as anything other than “all tags” is selected. This breaks what otherwise would be a great solution. Could the sorting be available even if a tag filter is active?