Other forums I'm a member of have a flash chat box and they are quite popular and attract new members. These chat boxes I reckon could be enjoyable for the members and everyone can socialize a bit more.
we have discussed this before in the admin / moderator forum and we decided against it because it will cause people not to post threads instead ask there questions in the chatroom.
Having flash chat would present the same problem as the Facebook page/chat - People are asking their questions/posting their suggestions on there instead of adding to the forum's content.