Many good points, thundara. As a long-time IRC'er with multiple servers and channels connected 24/7, I do think it's time to make a more official channel for Hubski, even if it's not run on our own hardware. I'd also agree that #hubski would be better than ##hubski on freenode (my first recommendation for an existing network), but I suspect the freenode staff won't hand it over so quickly without some sort of verification from a site admin/owner.
freenode is by far the biggest network and ideal for a community like this. Other networks like EFnet or synIRC would also be a viable option, but I think unless we have a real reason to move there I'd say go with freenode. Let's just hope we can get the #hubski channel name sorted out and redirect ##hubski to it.