I am not a person who would use the chat for any serious things (discussions), but it seems to me that the chat would be more for some other things, such as some ordinary user chats like small conversations on the topic "how are we doing today", "what did you have for breakfast" or "happy birthday to a member".
Of course, this does not mean that someone cannot use the chat to write something of great importance and urgency, such as "the forum has been hacked, change your passwords".
I think the chat makes sense, but again that's just my opinion...