(Anger directed more at people who call us "bozos" if we use more than a token amount of smileys that is low and at programmers who think that we do not need more than 1500 smileys because more than that is just stupid or a headache). Keep in mind, I spent years trying to find a forum that would actually
allow my smileys my way on a forum. I have special needs that require me to use smileys outside of the box in order to process the information on the page faster. A sea of text is just that - a sea or ocean of text that makes little sense to me. Also, Kanji and Kana is just EASIER for Non-Japanese with Non-Japanese keyboards and computers, to just use smileys. I can't post Kana without stupid windows trying to turn it into Kanji.

I might be doing something wrong here, but I am a noob to writing in Kana and Kanji on a keyboard.
If SMF goes the way of those other arrogant forums (that I have tried), then I will have to ditch the use of forums and go with something else less desirable (something we have already tried and didn't like - hard coding html pages, Mind Maps, TreeSheets, Real White Boards!)

I prefer a private forum on my website where by only my people can see it. The issues were: Must be public, must be English only, rated G or PG (no MA games which my friend does, but not me), no stories, or no games depending on the slant of the forum. NO child of child of child of child boards (except Yabb). Smileys limited to only what we give you (for free online, not open software YaBB; but phpBB I had major issues with getting my smileys on there, but this was a few years back.)
1. If I use my forum to plan a game I do not want to upload an image every single time! I can use the smiley character that is not a "Eeks!!! - I see something quick hide it 16x16 size!" if I have freedom of number of smileys i use. We use the forum to plan oodles of games, stories, VNs, CYOA, etc. None that really becomes public, but might some day.
My smileys range in size from 8x16 all the way up to 200x200 but most of them do not go over 100px in size. Only a few are 780px long, but only 6px tall and used to separate content in a visual way such that I can tell by the colour of that line, what content is going to follow.
We use these smileys for bullets sometimes because I hate dots and find them them hard to see. Plus, if everything is dots, then I can't say that these bullets are dealing with the quest part of the game, and these bullets deal with the fighting aspect, or the puzzler part of game.
If I have to go to pb to get image code to put in my forum with every single post I will go through the roof! I even seriously considered downgrading SMF to a older version that just worked, but I need it to work with the bleeding edge PHP.

I used to use pb for my smileys and quit because that took so long, plus their ads were sometime viral.
2. Planning stories. Yes, some of us are actually writers, as opposed to just using forums for chit chat, programming and other dialogue that does not require smileys at all.
What is attached is a
stupid example of what I do on my forum. I say stupid, because it was a quickly done example, instead of an actual example. So yes, I am calling my example stupid.

And yes, the 65kb issue that limits smileys to 1500 can be fixed. There has to be a way. Some forums all they do is smileys and they are all about smileys and how cool they are. And they want you to upload your smileys to show them off and share. What forum software do they use? Even YaBB I think had upper limits. I think it was the same 1500, but don't quote me on that, as its been awhile since I used YaBB. I switched back to SMF.
Please See Attachments as an example as to what I do. BTW, I have some boards 6 or 7 levels deep, but when I plan out my CYOA, that board could be up to 25 layers deep. At 25 layers, I'd use a device such as "board layers 26 - 50". The actual title will be something that just tells me it comes after whatever was at layer 25. And, will in reality start back at layer 2 or 3.
Thanks for bearing with me and reading all of this! My friend and I greatly appreciate it!