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The theoretical results achieved in the ontology engineering field in the last fifteen years are of incontestable value for the prospected large scale take-up of semantic technologies. Their range of application in real-world projects is, however, so far comparatively limited, despite the growing number of ontologies online available. This restricted impact was confirmed in a three month empirical study, in which we examined over 34 contemporary ontology development projects from a process- and costs-oriented perspective. In this paper we give an account of the results of this study. We conclude that ontology engineering research should strive for a unified, lightweight and component-based methodological framework, principally targeted at domain experts, in addition to consolidating the existing approaches.