The example I'm thinking about involved predecessors to OpenGL.
As this example doesn't even involve communication over a network, I would agree that it is out of scope. ...
[OpenGL example] It's not that other examples such as X couldn't have used more network knowledge to avoid problems (e.g. the mouse stuff), but that the network stuff is the tail of that and many other dogs. Because of my employement history, I may know a little more about how to do graphics in general or over IP networks than many IETF participants, but I know that I'm abjectly completely utterly incompetent for doing exactly what the IETF started to do in that case.
Great scope example. The issue for OpenGL, however, demonstrates a gap in as much as the developers would probably have liked something like dccp so that they could use a library to get Nagle, backoff, etc. While we're a wire protocol sort of a group, we all should realize the importance of generality and good library support ;-)
If "out of scope" were removed as an acceptable reason to not do things, then you would never squelch bad efforts.
An effort isn't bad because it's out of scope. An effort is bad because it's bad, and we invest our faith in the IESG that they will use good judgment to catch bad efforts.
If anyone on the IESG does not feel empowered to say "no" they should not be on the IESG. WG chairs need to vet their own group's work first, of course. And we could certainly do a better job on that.
Eliot