They're just really bad and overused, no further motivation needed, + some "funny" user is likely to post a smiley or 10 here in this topic now, which will be it's last bump from my part. Won't look at this thread after that.
We have the option to turn off avatars, signatures, of course the option to not have to see the emoticons should be here too! The majority of jsp users are 20-30+, not five years old.
Yeah I'm gonna vote Yes on my own suggestion.