Plus it's not like IRC itself isn't also a SPOF in a different way. I've had [private] servers go down, netsplits and connectivity issues on freenode effectivel

Plus it's not like IRC itself isn't also a SPOF in a different way. I've had [private] servers go down, netsplits and connectivity issues on freenode effectively hindering communication... And all of the things that people use to make IRC more bearable are problems in their own right. Imagine a vulnerability with the znc bouncer? Tons and tons of people compromised right there. irccloud down? Oops. and so on.