Well, I think obviously Khaled would add a switch that determines if mIRC displays emoticons or not. Nearly every program that has emoticons has such an option, Even the IM clients, I can't think why mIRC would be different.

So basically if emoticons were added, It would not affect people such as yourself who don't want them. But it would make the IRC experience a little less drab for those who do (which is a lot of people).