Much effort has gone into mobile ad-hoc network (MANET) research over the past decade. Yet, even today, mobile ad-hoc networking is seen as a relatively new area of research. The reason for this can be traced to the fact that the maturity in truly understanding these networks is still alarmingly low and actual deployment of these networks rare. In this paper, we investigate the reasons for this lack and suggest ways for overcoming the shortcomings. We then describe four sub-topics in ad hoc networking that have not received much attention, but are crucial for making real deployment of MANETs feasible.