I suggest giving non-maintainers the permission to change "Assigned to" field.
It seems to me like that would be a good idea too. But I'm not sure what all the implications of that would be.
According to Trac doc[1], if I had TICKET_CHGPROP, I could modify ticket properties except description field, cc field add/remove. Who cares if I wrongly change priority, components or version etc. [1]http://trac.edgewall.org/wiki/TracPermissions
Once tickets are properly assigned, all you have to do is to look at "My tickets".
Assuming reporters assign tickets correctly, sure.
That might encourage reporters to open ticket carefully, I hope.
In addition to that, How abount sending reminder to macports-dev when there're tickets unchanged more than a few weeks? Trac's backend is RDBMS so checking ticket state should be easy.
I know I have old tickets. Some need planning, some are waiting for upstream fixes, some are not very important but are still open because they're still unresolved. I don't need lots of emails nagging me about these. I have enough of an email problem as it is. Also, macports-dev is not a place to send automated emails; it's a place for discussing the development of MacPorts. For automated mails we have other lists, like macports-changes and macports-tickets.
Just add a update on those tickets. Reporters would be happy to see their ticket updated. And you are right. macports-tickets would be better.