In my mind there were a couple of problems in this game that were unforeseeable that I want to address while its on my mind. Has nothing to do with the ass end of the raping that I have been on. Nope.
First off, I think we could really use that extra player so we could have a dedicated GM or two so if anyone not playing has been following along, please join in if and when next time rolls around. Also, a stricter schedule would be significantly more convenient, it would really help me out if I could just look at a calendar and know where we are at. In addition, changing the way diplomacy works would be great because I'd love to have a better idea if I am intentionally or unintentionally being ignored. Having something like 2 half hour diplomatic sessions on IRC would be great (though hard to coordinate). We could also go completely opposite of that and consider the telegraph lines cut and have a turn delay on communications to increase fog of war, that could be interesting.
I'm pretty sure there was one more thing I meant to mention but I had a couple drinks and now I don't remember and I'm like 20 minutes into an 8 sentence post >_>
You could use an external web application which handles the processing of commands and has a built-in timer, such as Vdiplomacy.