It wouldn't make sense to have an IRC client in the taskbar or shell windows, so I don't see how an Explorer plugin would be any more valid than what he's suggesting. Especially seeing as we're (allegedly) only months away from Vista & IE7 being released which will completely separate IE and Explorer, in which case there'd be no sense having an IRC client just in the GUI shell, and no real sense having it inside a web browser (IE or Firefox).
There's no need to bring a Firefox vs. IE debate into this either. It's petty and stupid.
