The client was specifically designed for browsing web pages. It has all kinds of features for it. A chat client would be quite different. The file menu would load and save chats. The context menu would have chatty things in it. You have to close the application to lose any application state. We've kinda forgot how nice it is to have a desktop application. 30-35 years ago function keys where cool. I cant remember the last time I've used one. I also cant remember the last time I've used the top menu with alt keys. The browser also has to limit functionality for safety reasons.

I mean, it's slow, it uses about ~500x more memory than my irc client does, the interface doesn't meld with the rest of the OS, the options for end-users to actually customize how the app works are direly limited... I'm probably missing gripes but thankfully I haven't had to use it for a couple of years.

Slow, memory hog, and incredibly bloated for what it does (not much different to what IM clients did 25 years ago on 1/100 the resources).