I personally love the smilies; I've often written in "where's the "so-and-so" smiley when you need it most?" when there hasn't been one to reflect my tone. And that is exactly what I use them for - tone. As we ALL know, undoubtably, email and posting can be dangerous. It is SO easy to misread the tone of a post. I find the little smilies help a lot. I'm not necessarily having a good old guffaw when I use the yellow laughing smiley, but it reflects the tone of my post. I've seen a few smilies on here that aren't part of the Ledge selection that I love. Someone added one one time that I laughed out loud at: it was a little smiley going "blah blah blah blah blah" It was hilarious. I also love the one on the BN.net board of the smiley banging his head into the brick wall. I wish we had that one over here. I think it would be a very popular smiley...
By the way, this one
is my favourite. I use it sparingly; only when the mood is perfect.