Some other comments touch on whether the react panel is too complicated. On any other platform, I would agree. Not here. It is not even more complicated than Slack, and troves of people use Slack with no trouble. I think the posters/​commenters the moderators seem to want to see on LW are easily capable of dealing with much more complexity. All useful data. If you are worried about distraction, add an personal setting to hide it.
Some other comments touch on whether the react panel is too complicated. On any other platform, I would agree. Not here. It is not even more complicated than Slack, and troves of people use Slack with no trouble. I think the posters/​commenters the moderators seem to want to see on LW are easily capable of dealing with much more complexity. All useful data. If you are worried about distraction, add an personal setting to hide it.