Iknow we've got sector, general, group and guild channel buttons ..but there's room on that bar for a few more. How about a nation specific one (join 11) ? and a "blank" one that can remain set to a user defined channel?
Also private messaging and responding is a pain while in space.
Could something be done to ease it without having to press the "N" button?
Also,could the inactive buttons have a greyed out look?

you can private message by typeing /msg "name" into any chat prompt line, channel, guild, etc.

If you are carrying on a conversation via PM, then you can simply open a chat prompt and press 'tab' to autoreply to the last person who /msg'ed you.

I like the idea of a few more chat buttons, but instead i would prefer to see 6 or 8 totally customizable tabs. Eg i can set guild and group chat to go to one tab, channel blah, to go to another, a third for PM and server information, etc etc.