Saying that Slack is "just another chat client" is sort of like all the old arguments about how much more powerful PCs were than Macs because they have more features—it's ignoring the value of design and conceptual elegance, and the real impact that has on UX and productivity.
... is that not the hallmark of a great product?
The fact that you could log irc transcripts, index them, give them a web interface, and write bots to chain things together is not the same feature as Slack integrations. If that is your bar for a feature, then we might as well give up trying to write innovative software, because it all uses the same opcodes anyway.
> I'm not saying Slack is bad, just that it's nothing impressive or innovative.
The attitude that a new product is not innovative because its features resemble features from past products leads to no logical conclusion except that nothing is innovative. Everything is based on previous ideas.
If a product were merely the sum of its features, then Apple would not be alive today.
Slack? I use it, but I don't see the attraction. It's just another chat client with a couple of cute features. I'm really not clear on why the world seems so enamored with something that's really not much of an improvement on something we had in 1995.