Rather than hide, I'd have them "sink to the bottom" or add a "hidden page" with the opposite semantics (unhide on long press). This prevents mistakes and allows people to create a workflow where they only whitelist (or filter to top) certain emojis, while still having access to ones they didn't think they needed.

That sounds like a good idea. For each category/page you can move your 20-30 most favorite emojis to the top.

No need to install CM14, with root you can replace NotoColorEmoji.ttf in /system/fonts

Better yet, a search function where each character has proper descriptions.

If you've ever used LINE, they have a really nice inline emoji suggestion function, where as you type words a list of possibly related emoji appear (presumably they have them tagged with various keywords).

Everything else about LINE is terrible, but I'd love it if everyone just copied that particular interaction.

Swype does this too, although I never really use them, it is a cool feature.

Swiftkey has this, and it really changed the game for me because it baked emoji discovery directly into my typing flow.

Slack places the "recently used" emojis on the first page. That works really for me.

Yes, but the "recently used" emojis constantly move around based on their usage. I'd rather have them in a fixed place for muscle memory.

As does Android, actually.

And iOS.