> Approximately nobody thought Google’s current emoji family needed a total overhaul

According to who, a sample size of you?

I don't love their current emojis. The older, flat "blob" style was much better, and if I had my druthers we'd be getting a 3D remaster of those.

> stop breaking our pattern recognition

OS updates will come all the same, it's your job to select and enforce a style that you prefer. If not, your emojis will be like system fonts; outside of your control, changed at the whims of your OEM. And we all know that Apple and Google love breaking your muscle memory.