If dry bones chat utilities like irssi or bitlbee are too staid for you, you’ll want to shift to something like bitchx.
Some of the better “graphical” effects of bitchx are lost there; I didn’t take the time to configure the characters quite right.
No matter; the ASCII art is still visible, and the color schemes are still cool.
Aside from that, I have to be honest — I don’t know what else to tell you about bitchx.
Its finer points are listed on its home page. I think I’ve mentioned before that I don’t irc clients very much; if there is a benefit to this one over something like irssi, please let me know.
Inconsolation 
I can’t comment about bitchx but my preferred irc client is weechat and for me the benefits over irssi are two fold;
1. Better buffer/window management (and no irssi script can duplicate this in my experience)
2. Better mouse support (yeah I know using a mouse is blasphemy in these here parts) which if memory serves me right can be duplicated in irssi using scripts.
I was using BitchX back in the days before I switched to irssi due to a halt in development and/or security issues. Looking at your link it seems development is up and running again. BitchX is quite similar to irssi IIRC and you can achieve almost anything from the keyboard. I never used any scripts for extra control anyway.
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