They should also remove the emojis, there is no need to have people feel good about upvotes. I've long felt uncomfortable with emojis on Slack as well. Responding to a coding or infrastructure issue should not be a social activity, I respond because it's my job and if the issue is worth it, not because a human being should feel appreciated (either them or me).

The emojis reduce (but not eliminate) the number of "me too!"s PRs will get, which IMO is a good thing.

That only requires a vote button, not a whole range of cringe cartoon images.

Many people write code for fun and slack is a social communications platform.

If you can't imagine people using these tools for other reasons than pure unemotional business value then you don't understand their market.

Your suggestions would lose those platforms users and revenue.