demo.html

What about using triggers? Does anyone know any drawback using them? The benefit is that all internal variables are accessible via the triggers, and the code is very simple.

See on jsfiddle.

Example usage
<div id="mydiv">This is the message container...</div>

<script>
    var mp = $("#mydiv").messagePlugin();

    // the plugin returns the element it is called on
    mp.trigger("messagePlugin.saySomething", "hello");

    // so defining the mp variable is not needed...
    $("#mydiv").trigger("messagePlugin.repeatLastMessage");
</script>

jq-snippet-events.js

jQuery.fn.messagePlugin = function() {

    return this.each(function() {

        var lastmessage,
            $this = $(this);

        $this.on('messagePlugin.saySomething', function(e, message) {
            lastmessage = message;
            saySomething(message);
        });

        $this.on('messagePlugin.repeatLastMessage', function(e) {
            repeatLastMessage();
        });

        function saySomething(message) {
            $this.html("<p>" + message + "</p>");
        }

        function repeatLastMessage() {
            $this.append('<p>Last message was: ' + lastmessage + '</p>');
        }

    });

}