Think hard and PM me, IRC sucks from iPhone
Makes sense why you requested a random chat board on the forum
You need to give IRC an honest shot, which you have not.
Try setting up a znc bouncer for yourself.
If you use Colloquy I guess you can background the App and as long as you check in at least once every 10 minute it wont time out.(Ape has been talking with colloquy dev, no way around that 10 minute timeout, its something Apple does)