Doesn't it also lack a common, arguably nice, frontend? With integrations to everything under the sun pre-built, requiring no management by the implementers? Built in bouncers, searchable history, etc?
https://github.com/jleclanche/quassel-weblog
There's a demo in the URL field (not hotlinking here directly because it's a weak server). I didn't really document it but there's backlog search, ?highlight=<nick> functionality and it's straightforward to add functionality.