I'm still not convinced #wikipedia-en-admins is a great idea as it stands, but it *does* tend to be on-topic more often.
There are many many times when I need to quiep of trusted editors to look at a problematic article -- for extly ask a grouample, we get a complaint from someone fairly obscure, on a topic I know nothing about, and I look at the article and it is obvious crap. The channel is already proving useful in that regard.
Trusted editors == admins? Should I feel vaguely insulted?
So far I've resisted the temptation to want to be an admin. I don't have much interest in stopping vandals at the day-to-day level, and there are plenty of admins to carry out tasks like renaming pages, deleting, undeleting etc. I occasionally wish that admins would be a little less enthusiastic about impressing their personal preferences on others (the Wikipedia tagline being a good example). But in general, not being an admin hasn't caused me any hardship, or caused me to feel "left out" of anything.
Secret IRC channels of "trusted users" consulted on important decisions may make me rethink this.
Steve