I agree with raccoon on this. I've encounter multiple people that I want/need to converse privately with but for reasons they keep their /away active.
For me, I use /away as "not paying attention to mIRC". If I see I've been highlighted or received a new private message(via mIRC icon blinking) I swap over and have a quick chat but completely forget about my away message being set until 30minutes into a conversation when the user brings it up.
No one is saying it should be mandatory; like 95% of mIRC's features it should be completely customizable
