I am aware that 1 is plenty for proper functioning, but more connections helps prevent the network from becoming segmented. I was just wondering if there was a limit because I am always at 15 which seemed odd to me.
Anyway in regards to the question I think the protocol itself should support some kind of mechanism like this as it is good to know. As far as I understand it the IRC server is more of a temporary thing until a more permanent solution is implemented. This will probably have to happen sooner, rather than later, since the growth of the system will soon overwhelm the IRC server. It is also somewhat of a single point of failure, even though the clients have other ways of finding eachother losing the IRC server could end up fragmenting the network causing several “islands” of interconnected nodes. If this islanding persisted for long enough transactions could be lost.
-Buck