HTC Dash / S620 / S621 (Excalibur)

how do i get aim to work well on the dash? i wanted to get the sidekick 3 because i like how their aim works on it but the guy was telling me at the store that the dash is a way better phone but it only shows a couple people from your buddy list online at a time on the Dash. Is there a mod or a program to d/l to make it show the whole buddy list? And im already assuming that the dash doesn't use text messages as IMs. thanks for any help i can get!