What Annabelle said.
The problem with emoticons is that some people tend to overdo it, and you end up with one gazillion emoticons in a single post, or in one thread. While some of them are funny, a screen full of blinking and rolling around emoticons gets old quickly.
In general I am not opposed to turn them back on hoping it doesn't become an issue. Perhaps I will put a poll up and see what the majority of the users think.