Every application that has actully done something to improve hive and really onboard people didn't use the fund.
Although I agree we don't really have many examples to determine this to be the case over time considering it's mostly @splinterlands that has seen success and they existed/started up before there even was a DAO. I don't disagree though that a lot of the proposals out there wouldn't even need funding to begin with, some seem to just ask it cause "why not", some seem to ask it "as bonus motivation" for projects they were already building and maintaining before the DHF existed. I can only count a handful of them personally that I'd say truly deserved it, some of them asked for funding after the fact so maybe you know which one that is I'm referring to.
I don't agree with the last part but yeah, let's see how it goes from here, as mentioned in a comment above I'd really love to see some more transparency and activity from projects actively being funded rather than just "becoming active" before they need to renew their proposal.