There has been intermittent frustration from myself and others wanting to access such a system for communications that are not of a general interest to the membership as a whole, like for a meetup  of a couple of people for lunch or a trade of materials. It's been posited that the function could be made rather easily accessible.

Seemingly not forthcoming, and from my scanning of previous posts addressing the issue, for plenty good reason. Idylewild suggests potential for abuse. I'd concur (aackk, was going to look up a members name and found some bot has been signing up members like crazy... I made it to page 18 of four hundred seventy something on my way to the J's and was only on the 2nd  or 3rd page of permutations on the name aileen, jeez.)

but ... it (the PM system) does work in a few more steps than a one button access might.

the path is: my (your) personal member page, logged in.

Click the inbox button (as in, Watching:, Subscribed:, Inbox:, Members:, Profile).

From there click compose.

Send to (start typing) select.

      there you go