You're gonna laugh at this but I didn't even realise it was there! I'm not kidding.
The truth is after a year or so of being in here, despite the odd few changes, as a member I'm kind of familiar with things and really it's just force of habit. Maybe that's the chat's downfall. It's not prominent enough. A hotlink or something saying who's in the chat on the homepage ALONG with the general who's in the forums would probably help that. Just a thought. Now that it's been brought to my attention I might go check it out again... but Lyson's made the perfect point. What's it there for if no one ever uses it? More chats for idle banter might lessen the load on the general boards... maybe?
Just thinking aloud is all.
With the latest interest in trying to lure more people to the site why not try and utilise the chat room in some way for those of us already here? I don't think the gallery's seen a bit of action for a while neither... hmm.