IMO, it would of been better to suggest something like this: When you include a color in your nick - increase the length by 2, and when you remove a color, decrease by 2 again. And the same with all messages.
May also do the same with "\" - but with 1 character.
For that I would vote +1.
But I really don't want to see people with extremely long nicknames.. The amount of characters for a nick/username is, imo, really more than enough. And I really mean -
more than what's really needed. Imo, if the thing I just said is ever done, then I'd say put some more limits on nicknames(only nicknames, because usernames can't contain color characters).
But still, that's only my point of view.