IRC has a completely separate problem - it hasn't evolved to deal with the modern world. The online/offline model with persistent connection while online is a total anachronism. And you can't send a screenshot through it - even email can do that.
Most of my IRC users hate the persistent records of modern chat systems and their persistent “always-online” functional designs. They want to be able to log off on their terms and not have a session follow them around, which IRC respects. For those who want rich rendering for media, they can choose a client that does that rather than have it forced upon them by default in Discord or Slack.
Same deal with sharing images: why shoehorn it into IRC when we have copyparty right there? It’s faster, easier, and entirely ephemeral - just like IRC is configured on the server side.
The point isn’t a “do everything” software or platform so much as a “do what we need so we can go live life doing what we want” setup.