The Presidency discussed this last night.
This was tough. Unfortunately we didn't come to a final conclusion on this. It has come up a few times in the past. The reason it wasn't implemented before is because
1) we're possibly too large to make it work... imagine an open chat with 8 conversations going on at once. Small clubs with 6 people could do it, but when you have 20 people online all the time it could be a mess.
2) would it take away from the forum posts? Meaning would people just type their question in the chat forum "hey how can you sex a flame angel" instead of using the forum topics.
3) would it be tied to the username list, meaning you'd make a post and it would show your name... or would it be an open chat.
4) is an IM system better than a chat room?
This is something we may just try out. Maybe give it a whirl and see what happens. If it works great we leave it, and if not we take it down. No clear answer on this.
Adam