I’m liberal in most senses but in terms of writing I tend to fall on the conservative side.  i rarely (ever?) think emoticons are useful.  if the writer needs to resort to smileys,etc. then the writing needs to be improved.  words shall reign supreme.  (Parentheses are even borderline in my book).

If the “pen is mightier than the sword“, then the “well-formed sentence is mightier than the ”

and here I am italicizing everywhere.  I AM a hypocrite, and i can’t even find the shift key that often.