You might actually be right, server-to-server IRC is good for finding an efficient path between all the servers in the network (ie it considers the network as a whole, not just a series of 1-to-1 connections) and send the minimum information required, so we should be able to keep that and make the client-to-server protocol different.

In short, make the relay/bouncer part of the server itself, and tell clients to connect with the relay protocol, not the IRC protocol. If there were some common standard for this second part that would actually be a great thing.