Yes, NPC 'emotes' and, more importantly, reasonably intelligent reactions to their environment definitely should be in. After playing both Assassin's Creeds, any game that doesn't have a comparably reactive world feels kind of... bleak to me. When I put a corpse in someone's bed, the least they could do is scream or poke or, I don't know, roll their eyes and kick it out, whatever - anything just to show that they care... even a bit... at all... :[

And while on the subject, I think that the Player Character should occasionally show some signs of life as well: shift weight, examine fingernails, dust off a sleeve, et cetera - just an innocent aesthetic fancy of mine, but always better than being under the impression thoughtout the entire game that the character I'm playing is a robot entering hibernation mode whenever left to its own devices for a longer while.

Sounds good. Immersion and all that lark. We could well get it too what with all the improvements in animation BGS is making.

What would be the point in the devs devoting extra time and energy into that? It would be completely wasted on anyone who's playing the game in first person view.

They don't have to make new animations for the PC. Just reuse some of the ones for NPCs and only play them in third person. And not a single moment of development time was lost.

I tried not to, when I first joined all I did was post I made my first thread a week ago I think, I was cautious and made sure I didn't repeat any info

Not necessarily - you still do see the character's hands in the first person perspective. Their 'idles', while obviously limited in number, can be no less expressive than those possible for the third person view.
As an example, I remember Morrowind, where there was one catchy FPP idle animation occasionally played while standing still and holding out a weapon, where the character would, out of boredom, turn and examine the drawn sword as if admiring the blade. For some reason, I really liked that one little, completely irrelevant animation. And there we also have Dark Messiah, the entirety of which is in the first person view. The way the protagonist plays with his balls of magical energy (I swear it sounded much better in my head) and toys of mass destruction I found a very nice touch - very tiny and subtle, and yet greatly enlivening the character through whose eyes I see.