^this. You get what you measure.

To design a better issue tracker, figure out what you need to measure for success and then design a tool to measure that track changes that drive improvements in those metrics.

For example, "feature completeness". When you achieve N of M features complete then you have an Alpha release - now build something to track the progress of those features.

The same for bugs - they're really an aspect of your overall product quality. Figure out what quality metrics are important and build something to track the progress of improving those metrics.