It's surprising how strongly people feel about emoticons.
Oh, wait, I'm not that surprised. I still remember the uproar over the Brown colour scheme.
The new smilies don't bother me. Maybe I've been desensitized by too much emoticon violence at the movies; I admit to having seen
Night of the Living Smiley an unhealthy number of times in my teens. But I got over that. No, really, I did.