On releases, when I attach it to an initiative, I noticed that I see the entire initiative list including abandoned, achieved, and ones marked to not 'show on charts".
Is there a way to remove them from the list, or do we actually need to delete the initiatives?
If you have goals or initiatives that have been achieved, then you can hide them in the UI by associating them with a "Time frame" and then setting that time frame to be "Archived". This post describes how to set up time frames: http://blog.aha.io/time-based-goals-initiatives/ . Notice that in the last screenshot there it shows the "Archived" checkbox that you can use to hide everything in that time frame.
This Idea shows as shipped however I am able to attached Achieved Initiatives to Releases and Features, which this idea indicates I should not be able to do (and I don't want my users to be able to do this).