Chat windows
I used to use multiple chat windows, but since I play a priest I have a zillion hotbars open for rezzes, buffs, etc. so I don't have a lot of screen space even with a 1440x900 monitor. I've consolidated it into one window with four tabs: General (channels, ooc, say, quest text, etc), Combat, Guild, and Tells.
One thing most casual players don't know about tabs that is very helpful: when you receive a new message in a nonactive tab, the tab label color changes. A change this small is often missed. If you decide to use tabs in this UI, perhaps we could see a small ! icon appear when there is new text in a tab. This would be more intuitive and noticeable.
As for the combat tab...I rarely ever look at it. When you add in procs, haste, or other players, the amount of spam makes it far too fast to bother looking at during a fight. So personally I don't feel like it warrants a separate window, because as mentioned above you can keep track of that stuff just as easily with floating numbers.
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