Laconica is theme-able see http://laconi.ca/trac/wiki/ListOfServers for some examples. It can also integrate custom Plugins which allows you to do a good range of stuff. http://army.twit.tv http://bleeper.de http://todaysmama.com/connect are few of the larger laconica communities that have custom themes and plugins implemented.
Well, most of our clients would like to make the site skinnable. By default the fonts dont look as pleasing as either twitter or jaiku. I have tried it on Camino, firefox & Safari. I guess its a matter of opinion.
I was referring to the XMPP Pub-sub support. I am happy to be corrected.
I would love to go with laconi.ca. Could we take this offline? Is there an email id I can reach you at?
Thanks!