BuddyPress.org

when this is helpful to you in order to solve some issue as you described in the related TRAC, then this is fine. Also it will give additional options for the user, as he will have better Admin-rights to manage his Friends and have his own Forum (you really want to have each user having his own forum – probably a great idea….).

However, it should be a clear differentiation between “generic Groups” and “Friends”.

Lets say I am running a Dating-network on which I do have generic Groups like “Dining”, “Travelling”, “Hobbies”, etc. , then it would not be nice if Friends-Groups would get mixed-up with generic-Groups.