I have implemented sirdude's naked shoutbox that he has published on ubbdev - this then takes the shoutbox independant of the forums. This seems to work fine.
I will probably bring it back to the sidebar for 7.3, to see how we go - but will always allow the user to turn off the right hand sidebar - to aid this, I included a 'turn off' link at the top, which takes them straight to the 'my preferences' for them.
