I'd imagine that's a question for Zark - he's the one who added it - it's possible he's testing some of the forums responsiveness and it was part of the problem. (The forums would get a slow response time occasionally - which always coincided with when the chat was crashing)
Might have to wait until we've got a full-fledged front end, but definitely was nice to have so I'd definitely recommend it returning in some way.