It has nothing to do with whether or not you email the editor; I submitted a site I designed for a client and in over a month still had not heard back or seen it listed, so I emailed the editor.

She responded to my email, promising to have the site indexed within a week, providing it met requirements (which it did; I read their "standards" thoroughly before submitting)

The site had still not been listed in two weeks so I emailed the editor AGAIN, and again received a response that the site would indeed be indexed.

It has been over four months now and still no listing. Perhaps if the editors were not volunteers, this could be remedied, but major search engines and consumers alike should not rely on DMOZ's accuracy. Excellent sites are being denied access for apparently no reason.