This is the biggest answer. IRC is in that most terrible of spots where there are too many users with too many different clients to ever universally adopt new f

This is the biggest answer. IRC is in that most terrible of spots where there are too many users with too many different clients to ever universally adopt new features anymore, while being old enough that many desirable new features have been implemented by its non-OSS competitors. It is not too dissimilar to email, or the whole IPv4/IPv6 debacle.