The pic in my sig is as small as I can get, from what I see. The options given at Imagestation when I click EDIT do not include resizing. Only croping, borders, etc.
I am one of the bandwidth-challenged people you speak of. Likely more so than most others. I use an antique computer (2 yrs old) and a phone modem. I also live far away from any telephone hub. On a good day I'm lucky to get 45000bps. I don't notice any real difference downloading posts here vs. any other board, site or page.
BUT, if it's a real problem, then I would vote for the idea of eliminating all of them, no matter the size, along with avatars and quotes....because the problem remains: where do you draw the line? If someone makes a post with alot of quotes, smilies or whatever else they drag in from another site, it hogs ALOT more space than one picture in a signature, this REALLY applies to anything that is an animation, movie clip, short or anything else that has motion....be it in an avatar, message body or signature.
Image cops read: , I will try resizing and uploading it as a smaller image and see what happens.....if that does not work, then screw it....I'll turn it off.