I must say I read it with dismay. Many of your negative points about ICQ apply to AOL IM which you left out. Because instant messages are a far easier to see and use than email.
Some people check their email once per day.
As for the ICQ box staying over all programs, this option should have the capability to be easily turned off or hidden. In Win9x, the flower goes in the taskbar at the bottom of the screen. A second plus for ICQ is that it detects when you dial up on the internet and hang up, AOL IM doesn't and must be manually started and restarted. It also displays an annoying message saying the connection to the server was lost when you hang up. I personally like ICQ must better for communicating with other internet users.