Pathetic.... 
I dare to say that 9999 from 10000 RTS games have that feature... and justly so.
It helps keeping the main chat clean.
And if your have people teaming up to you in an FFA.... well.... so is life.
The entire point of FFA is to be meaner than the other guys... be it military wise or diplomacy wise.
This is what I love about FFA... the conspiracys... the permanent movement of loyalities and goals... its awesome.
Just an example:
Player A fights player B: They are arround equal.
Player C enters the field and proves to be more powerful than A or B alone.
Result, A + B either die... or "conspire" to deal with C. --> Not possible without whisper function.
A+B have dealt with C, forcing him into retreat. Player D in the meantime has taken heavy lossers to players E and F who have been allied for quite some time now. Seing this new huge threat to their continued survival arch enemies A B C ally together to make a stand against that new invasion force. Attacking player E from 3 sides, they cripple his empire releasing any pressure on D. With his current ally being pounded, F tries to ally with the still rebuilding D. D and F convince A, who is unhappy about his losses in his alliances war effort to secretly help them and so the tide of battle changes again.This goes on and on... until either there are enough people allied, enough people to pissed off to ally with their neighbours, or one or more empires decimated beyond the breaking point.
In an FFA with unlocked teams and on similar skill levels... diplomacy is the differerence between victory and defeat. Or as a game tester once put is so lovely after playing Sins Diplomacy...
"Diplomacy is not about making peace with your enemies.... Diplomacy is about "Who to exterminate first"?
If you dont like the way FFA are usually played, consider joining FFA with locked teams. No diplomacy in there, although even there sometimes people will help each other... and be it by not attacking the guy who is just keeping their own nemesis at bay for now.
Locked Teams FFA tend to even more of a gamble than non locked FFAs... you might just get unlucky that all your 3 neighbours cant stand the colour red.... and so decide at the same time to pay you a visit.... just that this time there are no allys or hidden agendas of other players aiding your survival.
