Version 2.4.1 made some improvements, but meanwhile the project has forked. A set of developers have created Funpidgin is a version of Pidgin with a manually resizable input box and four other additional features so far.

According to the Funpidgin site, "What makes us different from the official client, is that we work for you. Unlike the Pidgin developers, we believe the user should have the final say in what goes into the program."

bit more here