Well it would follow, Tut, that at least 10 people are regularly using chat if they're advertising it. It's a new chatroom, if people want to promote it in their sigs as they have been, I don't see a problem with it. Just ignore it if you're not interested. As for the shoutbox, yeah I do think posting a link more than once in each visible session (what's visible in the left side) comes across a bit spammy. But so far, it's not been that big of a deal.
Yea, the shoutbox spamming seems a tad much to me.
Signatures and the occasional shoutbox re-advertisement would be better.