Iif your only reasoning is speed, then I'd say mIRC isn't for you. Please tell me how mIRC is the fastest IRC client available? You think all the code that allows mIRC to support scripting, multi-server, advanced GUI interface, mp3 players, timers, socket scripts, fserv, etc, etc makes mIRC fast? If you compare mIRC to just about every other IRC client available, it is probably one of the slowest. Need I remind you how slow mIRC runs if someone floods a channel with control codes? So why do people keep using it if it is slow? Because of the features. I can't speak for everyone, but I'm willing to sacrifice a few seconds of CPU time in order to give me hundreds of extra features. So as I said, if speed is your only concern, then mIRC really isn't for you. There are plenty of clients out there that are faster than mIRC. They accomplish this by not supporting as many features.
So the same holds true with the help file. It would be great if the "non-scripting" section of the help file had images. For example, when you are looking for help on how to get ident working, it shows you pictures of exactly what settings you must set, thats much more helpful than providing just text. The "scripting-section" could be loaded with tons of examples, and features that allow you to use javascript to only display the samples if you want to. Chm is much more suited for searching than an hlp file is. A Chm doesn't require rebuilding the search list each time (where as hlp does, making it slower). Again, I'd rather sacrifice a few seconds in speed in order to have a helpfile that is more helpful.