I like the idea of an individual chat system, but the whole different room sort of thing doesnt seem nice to me.
if those rooms were created you probably would only talk to the ones you already know thus making it even harder for newcomers to find people to talk to.
but perhaps some general rooms, like an offtopic and a production room and such could work, cuz right now the chat is a bit messy if you know what I mean.
so.. basically ignore my first two lines and

Also I realize that the boards work like something similar, but i can imagine that it would get rid of all the new threads about stuff that is already in a thread.
An example would be that if you're trying to work out why Reason doesnt play sound, then instead of creating a new thread about it on the help board, you could simply ask in chat, without it being overheard.