Agreed, constant requests for status updates are annoying and unproductive. The lead shouldn't have to poll for data all the time but shouldn't expect everything to be pushed his way, either. I don't think it's that hard to have a good sense of where things are at from commit logs, building and running the software, bug reports, and casual conversation with team members. If, however, a team member is working on something high profile, risky, or is trying his best to crawl into a cave and avoid all human interaction, they are probably going to need special attention.