A few days ago I noticed that Short Story America had had one of my submissions for a full year. I decided that was long enough, and withdrew that story and another I'd had in submission with them.
In communication with SSA's editor, I find that they have a policy of never rejecting a story. The idea is it'll remain "in the hopper" until it's either accepted, or withdrawn.
I believe he's adopted that policy as a matter of necessity, based on not having any staff, and therefore not being able to deal with his backlog of submissions. From my viewpoint, it makes no sense. I could have tried that story with several other markets during the year I spent fruitlessly waiting for a response from SSA.
(The policy of only responding in the case of acceptance is mentioned on the website now, but I don't think it was a year ago; I just assumed I'd eventually get some sort of response.)
SSA encourages simultaneous submission -- but most of the desirable markets do not, so once you've got a story in their Forever Hopper, it limits what else you can do with it. I think the editor's sincere, but I won't be submitting there again (unless SSA becomes successful enough to hire some staff and start dealing with their submissions in a timely manner). It's hard to see how any writer would be happy with having their story in limbo for an indefinite period.