Wow. I just saw this thread, and there's no way I'll catch up. But I thought I might as well say my piece. A lot of this has probably already been said:

Don't get rid of Chat. It's not stagnating -- It's not always as full as it was about a year ago, but weren't people talking about how they preferred Chat when it was _smaller_ then? Not everyone's going to stay, unfortunately, but Chat is still active, and, to me, still the source of the community. I'm not fond of LJs, either, nor is it as much fun to talk to someone over AIM when you can have a discussion with numerous participants in Chat. I have a lot of friends here, and RinkChat is pretty much my only method of communication with them. May as well leave Chat up. If you take it down, someone's going to get RookChat running somewhere else and we'll move. Or I will, at least.