> unnecessary visual distraction

I think I personally see emojis used in this manner as unnecessary visual distraction, because it detracts from whatever self-consistent design system you had going on (when used for high visibility items like front page headings). Emojis don't even render the same on every platform, so its a move that dilutes your design language.

Even if it's a useful visual guide, I would wager nine times out of ten you'd be better off with a self-consistent icon set...depending on what you're going for, of course.

The page uses 'font-family: sans-serif'. They've already given up on any control over what the page looks like. They leave it up to the browser, which, IMO, more sites should do.

Sites having individual "design language" is part of the problem that got us to the current balkanized web.