The trends just look to me like the IRC networks are flatlining back to their pre-2002 numbers... these graphs don't show death at all. One way to interpret those numbers is that IRC exceeded its "capacity" (not physically or technologically, just socially) between 2002-2006 and is now returning to a more stable level. There are many examples of this happening in all forms-- the dot com bubble is the first that comes to mind.
More importantly, it shouldn't matter if IRC dies. Nobody should fight for the survival a *protocol*. If IRC were to die, it would be because it was obsoleted by another technology that serves the same purpose. This is normal and happens all the time. IRC obsoleted the (pre-web) BBS, and in time, something will obsolete IRC. The death of IRC will definitely not mean there will somehow be less people communicating via text on the internet. Besides, if IRC changed to the point where it was substantially different, you'd have just ended up killing it yourself.
Death or no death, I don't think Khaled needs to worry about this. mIRC was popular, profitable and useful in the 90's when (looking at the stats) there were orders of magnitude less users on IRC than there are now. Judging by the actual trends it would take another 10 years before those graphs hit those 1990 levels again, so mIRC should remain useful for a while longer. And even if it did eventually become useless in 10 years, I'm sure he'd be glad to start working on something new by then.
