Hi Ioannis, sorry but i don't follow your train of thought
But once again it seems that people are coming get what they want and then disappear.
Can you explain?

Along with the low visibility of topics.
???

Chat is transient, so topics come and go and change depending upon the conversation.

I do agree that with the level of conversation being so low the fact that the history is limited, means that you cannot browse backwards to see many different topics. But that's the nature of a chat system.

It seems to me that people have voted YES for the chat, but then use it like a forum post, rather than an instant message between others users in the same time zone to discuss some transient subject matter.

I don't think that the chat system works very well on this forum, but it was requested and the result of the poll seems to be that it should stay.

Its a shame to see it under used and mis undertood. It takes time to set-up and maintain these features, so if they are requested and voted to keep, it would be satisfying to see them used, and used correctly.