Here's how those forums work (I'm talking about Site News, Espionage Report, Contests & Games, Affiliate News):
1) Only Mods can start new threads
2) Anyone can reply to them
3) The contents of the first post (made by the mods) get reproduced on other pages at the site
Now, to make life easier on me, I didn't want to worry about reproducing smilies on these other pages in the site. So, the rule that I've put into place is that no one can use smilies in these forums. In reality, the only people that need to not use smilies are the mods (since their posts are the only things that are duplicated).
Having said all that, there is a new version of the forum software on the way (which I've been waiting on for a verry loonng time) and it will have a more robust permissions system. What I could do, at that time, is not allow mods to use smilies and allow regular users to use smilies. This is almost certainly what I would do, since there's no reason to disable smilies for users.
In the meantime, I could re-enable smilies and just hope that the mods don't get careless in those forums.
Anyway, that should tell you everything you need to know. There are lots of unreasonable things I do just because I can, but disabling smilies isn't one of them.
:dance: 