Can anyone write a chat room program for SMF that actually works? None of the chat rooms available in mods are worth anything, they break for no reason after having to jump through hoops just to get them to work in the first place.
A reliable integrated chat room is something that SMF is sorely missing.
It's difficult to find a mod that will suit all your needs.
You don't specify what are your requirements for such a mod.
there are plenty of both free and pay chat/shoutbox for SMF, of course, without knowing your SMF version its hard to give any advice.