> Asking someone to get a XMPP client so they can 
  > communicate with you normally just ends in confusion. 

That's not entirely valid. I mean, look at bittorrent, they had an ^official^ client and then there were other clients and people who did not know anything about configuring their clients still managed to use them.

Asking someone to used an XMPP client, ideally should be the same as asking someone to use a torrent client.