I agree with this. Like you said, people can communicate with
[*]Holocalls
[*]PDA
[*]Intercoms
[*]In-person chat
[*]Request consoles
[*]NT Chat
[*]News casters
[*]Command consoles (heads of staff)
There is an excess of methods of communication, and common chat makes many of them useless. As a side note, I've seen 5 different conversations going on in the common channel at the same time. The only reason people can follow that is because they can read the chat.
I don't think it would hurt to remove common for a bit and see what it's like.