I don't use smiles on my forum, however when I'm at the posting screen a big ugly empty box shos up where the emoticons would go. On 2.1 if there weren't any emoticons to show, the box wouldn't show. Am I missing something in 2.2, or is this feature just gone?

For IPB 2.2, just go to Tools & Settings -> Topics, Posts and Polls and make "Make the side-panel open by default" "no".

Wouldn't that also hide the other tools that would go under the emote box? There's no way to just nuke that one box is there?

The Quick Access tools will still be available in the drop down menu.