I was looking for a thoughtful perspective, (At 2:30 because I've been drinking, and alcohol gives me insomnia) and noticed that aside from this kind of thing we don't have much of a live chat environment.
That said, I think we should do one of two things.
1. Better integrate IRC with the design of the site. (Probably not feasible, I don't know enough about programming to know if that's feasible)
2. Better integrate IRC participation with the culture of the site (Which I think would be easy and a value-add to the community)
thenewgreen, who should I tag in this aside from mk ?