The second alpha release of the 1.0.0 line is here. In addition to incorporating the PHP 7.3 compatibility changes from the 0.9.9 release, the major change in this release is removal of all shims related to emoji.
From now on it is assumed that that for better or worse proper support for displaying emojis is up to the browsers and it does not require software based crutches (which many times produce a sub-optimal result). Just like with using text which is in a different language then the main language used on the site, it is up to the author to decide whether the target audience is likely to use software that will properly display the emojis being used.
Our impression is that for the most used emojis there is a very broad support, and you are not likely to run into display problems unless you use some fringe or very new emoji in the content.
Get it now!, just be aware that PHP 7.0 is a minimum requirement to run it.
You can learn more about the issues which were closed, and we intend to handle as part of the final 1.0.0 release in the 1.0 release line page.