May I just...butt in and say something real quick....
It seems that all the problems with the servers, the maps, and the lag have started up as soon as general chat was removed. I'm not sure if this is just a freaking coincidence, but I highly doubt it. Perhaps it due to the fact that so many people are now using only one chat to speak on, or all the movie spam. Not sure which. However, many of my friends have noticed that when you go into the plains, you lag to the point where it's so severe, that you cannot even move. I'm also crashing so much in the plains now, which has never happened to me before, and the sever is also online when this happens as well.
Does this have anything to do with general chat being removed? I'm not sure, and I cannot entirely prove that. However, it seems that all these problems I listed began as soon as it was gone, so perhaps it does need to come back after all...