Even with the recent AOL problems, I'd still recommend Trillian. Sure, keep AIM around if you are unconfortable with loosing connection, but I've run Trillian since July of last year, and have only been off AIM for a week. Not too bad considering AOL (huge base of programmers) was trying hard for a few weeks to knock Trillian (2 developers) off. Plus the next major revision will probably support falling back to the open network AOL runs. You will loose the advanced fluffy features if Trillian ever has to back down to the other network, but you can still chat. (Keep in mind I have no confirmed reports of this, nor the exact time frame this would appear).

I honestly found Trillian worth supporting. I'll probably be donating a second time, just due to all the awesome features added since 0.651 when I last donated.

And once you do load Trillian, feel free to start migrating to the other networks. Another advantage is that if you get your core friends to switch as well, you are no longer dependant on one network. Most are stable right now, but who knows what might be around the corner waiting to kill a network for a few days (Like the problems MSN had a while back, or ICQ months before that).

To me, telling someone to stay with AIM is like saying to stay with the 1.03 software on the empeg without ever trying 2.0. The difference is amazing in both cases.