I really do understand where you're coming from, and there will probably be a day when I think it should be more controlled (some people really go ham on emotes sometimes)

But speaking from an un-annoyed mind, I almost think the game needs them. Moved to the game from Guild Wars 2 in 2019 with SHB pre-release and the first thing I noticed was how *dead* the chat in cities felt.

The "over the head" chat bubbles that I was so used to in Gw2 were gone, and /say was so limited. People rarely said anything in /yell or /shout. For a while I wondered if my chat bar was configured wrong or something.

Like I'd see 50+ people in Limsa and maybe a single conversation or none.

Lion's Arch back in GW2 felt so alive (for me at least). Felt like the chat bubbles really helped people engage with each other.

In FF14, emotes are all you GET sometimes. Might be annoying when theyre spammed, but I think it might be worse if theyre restricted.