Jabber for file transfer?

I've recently started looking at Jabber and I'm wondering how people here are using it. Rather than an IM / chat messaging protocol, I'm thinking about using Jabber / XPMM for async "packet" transfer. The packets can be anything from simple text messages like requests or responses for data, to larger XML strings and binaries. The advantage I see is that client systems can receive their data when they come online, rather than having to be online like an HTTP web service or other peer-to-peer message transfer protocols. As I understand it, Jabber uses a "store and forward" mechanism. Email / SMTP can be used for the same purpose but I really hate to use email for yet another application for which it was never really designed.

Anyone with experience in this area? Recommendations for *nix and Win32 client API libraries?
A lot of info is found at WikiPedia and elsewhere but I'm looking for personal experience.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jabber

Most importantly, can we make use of this Jabber automation with the Jabber service provided here at DH?

Thanks!

I've used jabber (Gajim client on Linux) with DreamHost, but file transfer does not work for me. I probably have something set wrong, but haven't "needed" it enough to troubleshoot.