Even if I don't RP too much, I think using emotes makes a conversation more lively, it gives a character a lot more expression rather than the stiff faces of a mesh (like mines, irl) And I'll say it should work the same with roleplaying. I have at least a set of four emotes for each of my characters, most importantly rest, if I were to AFK.
I'll say, it takes a lot of fiddling to get the right emote, which may be why they would call it noobish to do so? I guess they'd rather avoid the hassle of constantly fluking their character's expressions. It might, as the previous have mentioned, be their own choice.
I definitely use the actions, really sets up the difference between a sitting mesh from a character. Then again, what do I know? I'm no experienced roleplayer. It only takes X/Z and an occasional LShift to use, nothing too complicated even if you're writing the lore of Warhammer 40k and can be easily used in between.
But yeah, it's more upon a person's liking on whether to use one-third the features of the game or not.