Why are boyah chatrooms so rarely used?

[bluaki]

Because you can't use bots, change nicks, have operators, etc. in AIM chats.

Actually, you can use bots in AIM chats. It's just that AIM bots aren't as easy to make nor as popular.
I don't see the ability to change nicks as being important. If anything, it can sometimes be annoying because impersonation is easy.
Operators are really nice to have in a room where they're actually useful. In the boyah aim chats I've seen, there really wasn't a need for ops most of the time.

Something about IRC I see as more important is that it has a focus on keeping a room to a specific name, while AIM chats are usually made with randomized or frequently altered names and tend to be almost invite-only. If somebody were to want to join an IRC room, they could always go to the same server and room name, while with AIM it usually involves asking somebody to invite them.

[Samus Aran]

um i was just naming things in general that are cooler about IRC but okay

[[hedy]Zidone]

A program which is able to connect to IRC. Like how the program you download from AIM's site is considered an AIM client, a program which lets you join IRC rooms is an IRC client.

Anyone here who uses Pidgin or Adium has one, not to mention there are websites that have web-based IRC like mibbit and the sites hosting pjirc applets.

also opera

[Samus Aran]

also opera

who the hell uses that though