"Leadership" should be used extremely loosely. Imagine the first droplets of a puddle. Sure, the water is there but it doesn't dictate the spread. "In practice" is irrelevant to how Handshake is working right now.

I'm not here to convince you of the merits of Handshake, you clearly don't see nor care for it. Just clarifying facts over opinion.

EDIT: FWIW, I don't know who your best friend is but JJ remaining a part of Handshake is a major plus in my book. I personally don't find Andrew Lee (there are two in the Handshake story, we're talking about the Freenode one though) palatable and have clashed with him on occasion. Jackasses exist everywhere but IMHO, good people outnumber them by a massive margin.