The reason why those number of cases reach the appeal council or federal court because those are the number of cases persued by the claimant. Nothing stops you at this time from appealing to the appeals council(that is changing in the near future one region at a time) and nothing stops you from filing a case in federal court. There are a few people who have been on these boards who have won after 5 to even 8 years or more. There are also lawyers who will take the case and they get paid more for federal court.