I don't see the point of graphical emoticons really... seems to me as if the program tries to tell me I'm too stupid to understand what a colon followed by a close-parenthesis means...
On top of that, IRC is nice because it's 'simple' compared to most IM clients... And I think it should stay like that..
I for one like that IRC is, compared to most clients, a bit harder to use than MSN for example, because it weeds out the complete idiots and leaves us with a higher percentage of people that actually care to chat, rather than to spam emoticons and other pointless crap like that.
</rant>
