@jrgiblette
Yes, as far as I know sending private messages with folk your not friends with is still out of the box, you would need custom code or a plugin to prevent it. Unless the core developers integrated it with the core in BP 1.7rc1 which I have not tested extensively yet then most likely you will need custom code if you decide to prevent it. If your fine with non-friends sending non-friends messages then that is default behavior.