Is there a live chat box? Or some way to chat with online friends without PMing and apart from the forums, something... I dunno... immediate? realtime?

We used to have them, for a few months I think, but not many people used it and it was costing Inso a lot to keep it, so in the end it was removed.

What Ant said.
Yes we had one. It wasn't used as much as was hoped, cost too much to maintain, and was one of the things cut due to constraints. Maybe someday when the site has enough money... *wistful thinking* :3