One of the few faults that I notice, is that there is no direct messaging

Young people always needing everything for ystrday! xDDDDD

No, there is no chat service. And I thinki it is not needed. Steem is a content platform. A place where you consume quality content and even create it. Then you can even comment on that content, if you wish. But here quality is a factor, a very important one.

There are other platforms where you just post whatever passes through your head while asking a friend what they will be doing this Friday at night while clicking the "Like" button while being distracted by that video which autoplayed on the feed.

Probably you got the idea.

If you like to chat because there is an impending necessity in you, I recommend you to use Partiko client, which allows you to chat with other Steem users which are also using Partiko.

Search for Partiko on the search field and there you will get where to install it from.

And... welcome to Steem!