[SpiralOcean]

I use start dates for waiting items also.

When I do my normal daily processing, I use the show actions with Status filter set to due soon or available. This won't show any actions with a future start date.

I leave my context filter on active.
The nice thing about this is... the waiting for context doesn't show up unless there are items in it with a start date in the past. If I am still waiting, I'll either create an action to inquire about what I'm waiting for, or if I want to give it more time, I tab over to the start date and change the start date to the future using tom (tomorrow) or a day of the week (mon - fri).

If I need to go through waiting items in the future (things people have gotten back to me about before the waiting for start date) I switch the 'show actions with Status' filter to remaining and look through the waiting for items.