My traditional answer to that crap:
SPEAK ENGLISH OR DIE!

I actually just saw a comedy central commercial yesterday that had "bow to our 1337ness" in it.

In other news, I noticed a guy (girl?) down the street from me decided it would be a good idea to remove the h4x0r and "I read your email" bumper stickers from their car after the windshield wipers were torn off and the car keyed to hell. Probably not the smartest move to advertise to others that you break into other peoples computers. Vigilante justice I guess.

(as i voted no: "1337 people" i see are the wannabebe hackers (o, is that script kiddies?)

1337 5p34k is a pain to type, only remotly good for comunicating secretly (as long as you mix some other symbols in, like so:" 113p5 t|\|4c | " .. anyone who can figure that out is as bored as me , or at least was as bored :) )

i prefer "aol speak" as it requires less typing, and faster comunication, wich is good in games (and also my favorite: its easyer then english, and i have an
excuse for bad grammer :) )

just in case anyone can read what i wrote up top:, heres another one, cuse your ovbiously bored(this one is suposed to be harder, but it can get even harder if your even boreder :) ) : " (|=|2|03| 2||_|0y "