[jandrese]

I agree. Even if it's as simple as having a way to exchange public keys baked into the protocol and allowing cyphertext in messages. Even better would be if certain channels could have their own encryption key (exchanged securely between people allowed to join the channel, and changed if someone leaves/joins).

This is like the email situation where encryption options exist, but it's too hard for mere mortals to use. If it's built into the base protocol then there's a chance that clients would implement the standard and actually use it.