IRC was there one month after my birth, before I made a channel on ext3, and will still be there in 10 years. As will our channel on the network that I made. I've taken nothing, but I did create one thing and introduced many to a wonderful protocol.
It was an easy choice to switch back considering how many users we lost by moving to IRC. Forum traffic is very important and it should come as no surprise that most users aren't very tech-savvy or just don't want to deal with learning a new chat protocol.
When we switched from the old chat to the new I thought it was a bad thing. But several months later I've gotten used to the new chat and I can see the benefits of the new chat and personally I think benefits over shine the disadvantages.
Benefits with new caht compared to the old
1: YOu can ping
2: Pm's open in new tabs at the same page instead opening a new window
3: Easier to read( minor benefit )
4: You can see when people log on and of
Benfits with the old chat
1: You can change your color
2: The layout is looking much better
3: You can see how many posts the persons made in chat + if they got a title.
4: You can pm in chat log.
5: You can mute people
6: You can post pics.
Both benefit and disadvantage
You can change your name
I don't say we should switch back to the new chat, I just think it's worth having this in mind.