1.) One of the main problems I am trying to solve is in your second sentence: "Once you find a chan you like..." It's time consuming to find new content you like, especially in a setting as nebulous (for most people) as IRC. With the discovery engine, all a user needs to do is rate recommendations based on what they are interested in, and they are immediately connected with groups of like-minded people and what they know. Fast and easy.
2.) In addition to connecting to groups of like-minded people, the user gets recommendations from those who are most influential and most in the know. All content is not equally desirable, and users using the discovery engine will only get recommended that content which has empirically shown is wanted by people that think like them (relevant).