The New AIM: My vendor lock-in love affair

I've installed the new AOL instant messenger. I wanted to voicechat with my family, and since different versions don't seem to be completely compatible, I reluctantly upgraded.

I say, 'reluctantly' because I hate AOL to the core of my being. Having started my career developing content within their walled garden of a service, I watched them ignore and miss countless opportunities as the WWW caught up and surpassed their offering.

More specifically, I hate the fact that they try to get back to their good-old-days by attempting to lock you in to any of their offerings. I'm stuck with AIM because of that lock-in. Most of my friends and family are on AIM, so I have to use it.

With the install came a variety of stuff I didn't want. Like a Plaxo client that installed itself into my MS-Outlook, and a special AOL flavoured variant of Internet Explorer.

They made some improvements, like tabbed messages, but they also changed some things I was used to. Like...
wtf is this icon? I'm guessing they replaced the easily understood 'door-open' icon, signalling a returning buddy -- with the more abstract buddy 'dropping in'.

But -- back to my rant about vendor lock-in. With everyone and their mother making web browsers these days, why doesn't someone develop a truly open and independent instant messenger?

I would love it if someone could just enter my domain, kaigani.com into their IM client, and it would use a peer-to-peer reference to look me up and connect to me.

It would still need a server of some sort, but the idea is that I'd have something I could take with me, like an XML file of all my buddies which I could move to another server if they have a better offering.

Lazyweb?

[UPDATE: Jabber seems to do some of what I'm asking for, but still, someone needs to find a way to get the general population to make a switch. I'm not sure it's possible.]