You missed my point.

Many of my contacts have six, eight, or more AIM accounts. New accounts are created regularly and old accounts discarded. As a rule, the account names have nothing to with the real names of the individuals behind them, and the users switch their active accounts--several times a day--depending upon where they are who they want to know they are online.

I don't want to sit staring at my "Online" list trying to remember if a given account is Teresa at work chatting with customers or Heather at home, only visible to family. I just want to know if the person to whom I want to communicate is online. Hence the need for account merging.