no but the lxde crew and or lubuntu has been actively committing suicide for the past couple years.... i think development for lxde the desktop is essentially dead... also most themes are also broken in 18.04 and since they've been ignoring it's become stale and dated.
In other words the delay is in trying to figure out where to take lxle from here.
PIXEL DE sounds like the best next fit no? Raspberry Pi Desktop on Stretch is ok but you know... Debian stable is slightly more boring at software updates. That and RPD currently are still not x86_64 yet due to dev resource constraints.
Well LXLE is still great, and I know some people who switched from Lubuntu as 18.04 became too slow for their older machines (like mine, which is otherwise running perfectly). Lubuntu was always saying and advertising that it was for slow computers that was why it made sense^^. I am still too much newbie to know more about how LXDE is currently running. Anyway, still many months ahead until 16.04 won't get any more updates, so we got no problem :).
A correction; it's not Pixel DE anymore but the full name which is Raspberry Pi Desktop. This being said, now I'm unsure if it's even feasible (yet) to suggest it as a replacement DE but it's still looks like a decent enough fork if team Raspberry plans to open that up long term.
A lot of people myself included have been asking for a buntu based #!/Bunsenlabs for some time now it'd be really awesome if LXLE is headed that way tbh.
All I can say is that only two distros are working on my 10 yr. old Gateway desktop: Zorin Lite 15 and LXLE. Ubuntu Mate, Xubuntu, Lubuntu and Mint XFCE all made the display go haywire. I'm sure there are a few others that would work, but I'd be hard-pressed to find any that are as attractive and stable as those two.
Personally, I am fine the way it is. I would be concerned that making it any heavier or more "modern" (for example using LXQT) would result in problems on older systems, the very target population LXLE was created for. Just keep it going!