Is your brother in the UAE? If he is, I don't understand why he wants to connect with AOL, or does he have to for some reason?
I like Adium, but perhaps it's missing some features, I don't know. What features is it he absolutely needs?
There's
aMSN,
Fire,
Proteus (which I think does MSN),
JBuddy, and
Psi. And more probably...
It would be sad to see your brother dump his MBP because of these issues.