i think it is quite clear for everyone that IRC is not going anywhere any time soon, so it is not really worth to debate it.
What I would love to have though is to get some true Matrix experience without the limitations of the bridging.
I think that for most “work-related” or “official” channels like #fedora-devel we do need to have bridging setup. But for more user-level interactions, like generic chat for socializing and support we can have Matrix channel without its IRC part. Thus I like the idea of a “Lobby” or “Welcome” area as Matthew described here: Matrix server channel setup - #7 by mattdm
I would also consider not bridging #fedora channel from IRC to Matrix as it is a high-traffic communication without shared context and it might benefit from horizontal scaling.