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Originally Posted by Cameron
If I have a sequential project whose next action has a future start date, would this not be a "Pending Project"?
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No. If you've put a future start date on a project, you are saying that you don't want to even see the project until that date appears. If you put a future start date on the next action, you are simply saying that you can't do any work on the next action until that start date arrives. If that start date changes, or you find there's another task which can be done before the next action, suddenly that project is active again.
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Right now, Omnifocus shows these projects as active, but there's nothing you can do with it until a date in the future because there are no available actions. My workaround has been to copy and paste the next actions's start date to the project's start date. The project will then show up as "Pending".
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You can add additional actions, you can change the start date, and you are reminded of the project's presence when you look at your list of active projects.
You take your car into the shop to have it fixed. The mechanic discovers after doing major disassembly that there's a part that needs to be replaced, and it will take 2 days to get the new part. That's still an active project, but progress can't be made until the part arrives. Now, if he discovers the part is needed before disassembling your car, you can drive it home and come back if and when the part arrives. That's a pending project.
There's certainly nothing wrong with you looking at a project, deciding that as you can't possibly do any work on it until the next action is available, and you don't expect the next action start date to change or additional tasks to be added, you would prefer to have the project be pending until that date. That should be a conscious decision by you, though.
Prior to OmniFocus 1.8, active projects where the next action had a future start date were caught by the Stalled filter in the sidebar. In 1.8, the definition of Stalled was simplified to active projects with no remaining actions.