If I remember right, the Chief Wight mentioned somewhere that he intentionally chose that only a limited number of smilies be allowed for us Downers to use, so that we could be able to exercise conveying what we really mean through words. As I can attest to, smilies have a way of filling the void of appropriate emotion in a certain post, especially when I can't find the right words (or when I feel lazy having to think about it *blush*). But we have all noticed that these very things that are supposed to make things easier for us tend to complicate matters. So I guess we have to exert more effort to make our posts clearer. We could imagine there are no smilies at our disposal, and words are our only instruments for communication.
And just a suggestion, could the use of asterisks that contain expressions be used instead? I've kind of gotten used to using it. *sheepish grin*
