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I've done some basic tinkering with Akeni LAN Messenger and I think it fits your needs pretty well. It operates on the local segment only, not across the internet, and provides basic messaging / file transfer functionality. There's a linux version too.

Let me list some of its main advantage:

1. Open Protocol.
   
2. Many clients and servers to choose from.
   
3. Scalable. Instead of a few huge server controlled by big corporations, there are many server run by anyone who wants to run a server that echanges information between them.
   
4. Less vulnerable. There are no single point of failure.
   
5. Able to talk with propietary protocols such as AIM and MSN
6. 
   
   

   The analogy with current email system is hard to miss. Think how bad it would be if you are forced to use joe@hotmail.com and joe@aol.com as the only way to exchange emails. Even worse, you have to log into joe@aol.com if you want to send email to bob@aol.com, and then having to log into joe@hotmail.com to send an email to alice@hotmail.com. Not to mention that having to use the name joe2001@icq.com because joe@icq.com is already taken by somebody else.
   
   

   Shameless plug: please try our jabber client at
   www.akeni.com. It is runs natively on both Windows and Linux. It has some nice features such as tabbed chat window.

Shameless plug: please try our jabber client at www.akeni.com. It is runs natively on both Windows and Linux. It has some nice features such as tabbed chat window.

Trillliam is a very nice program, but it is not the solution. It is basically 4 or 5 distinct IM programs all rolled into one single executable.

To name a few limitation of this approach:

1. 
   You need to have an account on each of the servers. This means a set of passwords to maintain.
   
2. 
   You can not (as far as I know) have a conference where one participant is from AOL and ther other is from MSN.
   

The jabber approach is much better, because it does not have a centralized server controlled by one single corporation. All you need is one account and you can chat with any other jabber user out there.

The jabber approach is closer to the way email server operates. There are many servers out there, and they can exchange messages between them. Think how much more vulnerable email would be if everybody needs to have 5 (and only 5) email accounts, one from aol, one from msn, one from yahoo, one from icq, etc.

The jabber approach is also more scalable, for the same reason.

Shameless plug: please try our jabber client at
www.akeni.com. It is runs natively on both Windows and Linux. It has some nice features such as tabbed chat window.

We also have a Jabber client, but the jabber client does not have that feature because it is not supported by the Jabber protocol. But I think the jabber protocol does allow one to become "invisible" on a per buddy basis though.

We have a new Jabber client that has most of the features you liked about psi, plus some additional features such as tabbed chat window, typing indicator, customizable toolbar, etc. It is also based on Qt and cross platform. You can download it from www.akeni.com