Thanks :) In terms of custom emoji, it may be worth checking out our new public roadmap for Element (which is new this week and hasn't yet been announced): https://github.com/vector-im/roadmap/projects/1. On the plus side, custom emoji are on the roadmap. On the minus side, they're on the 'Later' column - so you can see where they stack up relative to other work. Agreed that they would make a massive difference. We will get there eventually though (or perhaps folks will contribute them sooner :)

I'd like to agree with the comment above yours that how communicative you are being and the openness about issues combined with the transparency of the project really raises my and probably many others' opinion of the project and that if you continue this way, it's really looking bright!