Quite frankly - and not trying to sound like someone who argues simply for the sake of the argument - I personally still think that this is "fixing something that isnt broken".
However as far as the proposed solution goes then yes 60 seconds supression sounds much more reasonable than originally proposed 2 hours in my opinion.
If a message arrives from the user, the hide timer is reset to sixty seconds again.
Any message or specifically an away message?
If it resets only on away message then the screen would still be filled with quite a lot of away messages during a lengthy conversation making this whole thing somewhat useless again.
If it indeed resets on any messages then I suppose it should be serving quite reasonably. Sort of reminding you on longer pauses that the person you are talking to in fact claims to be away while keeping the constant nagging at bay during active "bursts" of chatter.
