I’ve been on IRC long before the stone age (so to speak) and its neither dated nor dead.
Not everyone needs the fancy audio, video and imagery that new protocols provider for. Some of us are content with just text. And for me thats the great value of IRC.
Why switch distros? Go to Sid if you want the latest and greatest? Or maybe testing if you want a bit of best of both worlds? :) I’m really curious why you think you need to change distro’s.