I think it would be good if when you have tabbed conversations, you can dock the contact list into it, i.e. either as a tab, or stuck to the side of the tab list.

Either that, or a list of all your contacts in their groups, so you can easily start a new conversation without opening up the contact list.

I was thinking this the other day - it's a good idea - although I'm sure it's been suggested several times before. If I remember correctly either Patchou or Cookie backed the idea so it might be a possibility (don't quote me on that )