The forum is about community. Without the community the forum is nothing. If the community wants something, we as administrators would be wise to listen to them, or risk losing our members.
That's why Mike posted the poll... to get feedback from the community.
It's very easy to mis-interpret peoples intent when reading newsgroups or email. Emoticons (smilies) help to clarify what the author is feeling when they write a document.
No problem at all with the 's. The thing we should be careful with (IMHO) is the use of graphic signatures. I know you can turn them off but I think restricting them to text only might prevent the forum from becoming a ful colour advertising catalogue for various peoples business'. A few lines of textual information is ok but the graphics are a little overpowering.