Yeah pretty much what cim said. Although anyone willing to abuse their signature and add 10 pictures and size 5 font is most likely completely retarded anyway, and will probably eventually got banned for doing something stupid.
"Will probably eventually." If they don't "probably eventually get banned" do we just deal with it? Even without BB code there are some ridiculously annoying signatures like
this and
this. What is the purpose of a signature like that? I don't want to imagine what they'd do with an unrestricted signature. Additionally I take it you haven't been on a forum with free signatures? A lot of them are plagued with sigs like
this. Going through stuff like that with
every post is more aggregating than anything, because signatures add no value whatsoever to a post. Frankly
I don't care if you have some supposedly cool banner with swirly colors and your name on it, I don't want to look at it every post. Smogon has over 60,000 members, you're a bit optimistic to believe both A) all users will use unrestricted signatures responsibly and B) unresponsible users will "probably eventually" get banned.
I'd rather see signatures more restricted, frankly anything more than 2 lines is excessive and exists to make signatures more obnoxious. (Yes, I'm aware my signature is over 2 lines). Hide tags also bug me that I'm sure that's just me.
Additionally, I really hate the argument "badge holders are less likely to do something stupid." Just say badgeholders get more benefits, that's really all there is to it; it's not a matter of "everyone's stupid until proven otherwise," it's "unrestricted signatures are a stupid policy but why not make it an incentive to contribute?" That way it's not only a benefit of contribution, it's a method of regulating an otherwise bad policy. If you want BB code for your signature, get a badge.
EDIT: I'm not necessarily calling people stupid, I'm calling open signatures stupid. And again, 60,000 members. We're not talking the ~10 users that have put input into this thread. Also, if "nobody uses size 5 or annoying colors," why's it a big deal to have them disabled?