I'm still using 0.8.2 as I'm using KDE 3.1.4 on RH9, and no later versions will compile under my version of qt.
I've successfully patched (as far as I can tell so far!) the msn plugin to work again, using the patch filed in the bug report
http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=105929
but I had to patch a couple of the files by hand as the patchfile doesn't work fully on such old versions of the code!
I've previously patched the Yahoo plugin to work with 0.8.2 too.
Just thought I'd share that in case there's anyone else in the same situation. I tried using GAIM, but it just doesn't handle going away as I'm used to (although it's probably an old version too). I might be tempted to upgrade to KDE 3.4.1 when it comes out, though.