It’s been three whole years since the final part of the “How to set up a public XMPP server” series of articles that Chinwag was the example for was published, and it went live.
We’re still quite a long way from the slick, integrated experience I’ve got in mind as a long-term goal, but as of now there’s a really simple page you can go to for quick access to the Lobby and any other chat rooms you might want to create or use.