Interesting idea. Two questions:

1) Why set up a dedicated server? You could just set up a room on any IRC network and give out the password here.

2) Are there really enough people here to maintain an ongoing room?

Perhaps a better approach would be for Doug to add a chat module when/if he updates the site and software. I know this is straightforward with phpBB. I'm not sure about UBB.threads, but it likely supports this too.