I'm... I'm surprised this many people are defending this. Every. Single. Person. In that game asked him to stop, it's not like it was one person. No, everyone but him asked him to stop, so THAT is what made it punishable is because it was done with the intent of ruining the game for other people. It's possible that you know, nine people randomly decided to blame him and make false accusations of emote spamming but I highly doubt that.
Edit: Correction, close to everyone. Oh, and you know, we'll ignore the last game which some people may have found punishable on it's own right. Wow, this community never ceases to amaze me at how much it wants to find something like that. >_>