The animation data for the emotes probably doesn’t take up more than a few dozen kB each.
Since the Carlton debacle isn’t completely settled, I don’t think it will reappear that soon. The decision to remove it is probably not something that Playground Games made on their own, but together with Microsoft Games and Turn10. Since Microsoft Games is the publisher and distributor of the game, they probably have final say on how to deal with legal matters such as this.
If the appeal is dismissed, they might very well put it back in.