BEEM - Android XMPP

Not sure if this really belongs in the 'feature' category, but then again I wasn't sure where else to put it.
I love the app (especially because of the otr support), but since I use it on an HTC Desire Z or Vision or G2 or whatever you want to call it, I use it quit a lot in landscape-mode (to make use of the hardware keyboard). The default look of the Chatwindow seems not very practical for this kind of use. While it works nicely in portrait-mode it seems like it wastes to much space in landscape. to be more precise: the top panels and the textbox to write a message take up about half the screen, so there is very limited space to actualy read messages.

Im neither a developer nor a designer, but my suggestion would be to condense the information at the top of the chat-view into 1, maybe 2 lines and either decrease the size of the contact image (maybe just put a little status icon), or put a little contact icon on the side of each individual message, like we see in many im apps these days.
To condense the information, the otr status could for example be displayed by a little icon, like an open lock and a closed lock, or maybe you could give an option to signal otr-status by the backgroudcolor of the textbox. for example the white textbox for plain text, a light green text box if an otr conversation is established and an orange or red box if the otr conversation is lost.

If this is at all relevant:
I use Beem Version 0.1.7 on CyanogenMod 7.1.0