Yes. It would be very useful and it will become somewhat essential in calculating a more accurate exchange rate in the future !
Regardless of the number of individual user connections, I would also like to see the total number of connected nodes vs the number of 'generating' nodes in the Bitcoin interface. It would also be good to know the highest and lowest number of connected nodes in any 24hr period.
As Bitcoins usage becomes more 'Macro', just calculating daily exchange rates is not going to be enough to satisfy Bitcoins diverse 'digital' community. Using 'Micro' exchange rate calculations from this data and the existing factors that NLS already includes will enable many more possibilities such a 'live trading'.
It would also be interesting to see the total number of transactions and the total amount of those transactions, again for a 24hr period.
You don't need to affect any aspects relating to user anonymity. You just need to harness the readily available data to plot high, low, medium and the mode.
What I'm basically saying is that this is a 'digital' currency (obviously), yet the projects 'base rate' is still effectively being calculated using 'paper' math !!!
This is not to say, that NLS isn't already doing a great job ! Not to mention satoshi's ( and any others ) excellent work in building the thing.
I think I will make a request list and add a topic in Technical...
I'm far from an 'expert' programmer, but with much IT and trading experience I have a good idea of what 'could' be calculated and added for the benefit of future users.
Having glanced over the 'active' source code much of the above is already being used in the 'functioning' of the software. I don't know whats planned for future releases, but we must have the foresight to collect and harness this type of data. Can any of the above be 'historically' viewed via irc data ? I've been making backwards neural network calculations and future predictions and would like to continue with this to help the project.