When you say that all the issue tracker(s) were ignored (and eventually lost anyway), that indicates a deeper problem than just choosing an issue tracking software.
Issues will be ignored if there is no process to management them.
I think we need to first and foremost get input from our mentors. Secondly, perhaps we should look at what various established ASF projects are doing, and even go and talk to them on their dev lists to ask what, in addition to the issue tracker itself, methodology they have in place around that.
Sounds good.
