Please don't complain here, but complain on
http://bugs.kde.org . Mocking about Kopete doesn't make the application any better, since most developers usually don't read this forum.
The first complaint is about the new lines. Try this: go to Settings->Configure Shortcuts and assign a shortcut to the
Send Message action.
And which version were you using? It might be useful to upgrade to the second beta of Kopete 0.12, maybe some of the issues you mentioned are fixed in the meantime.