There's been a few games that make use of just one direction on the D-Pad and then have the player use the stick to use a desired emote. If anything just using the UP on the D-Pad as an emote wheel would free up space for three other buttons on the D-Pad to map to other useful game mechanics. Like, an on the fly customised weapon loadout swapping assigned by either of the now available right/down/left D-Pad button. Just so no klutz makes an accidental click you can have a switch for customised loadouts to be on or off in general. Even if Auto Loadout swap is on you won't have to worry about accidental clicks, as you'd have to click and hold either direction on the D-Pad (a standard circular loading bar pops up - like when you return to orbit etc) and boom instant loadout swapping.

These are better suggestions then the other person who just made 3 paragraphs to say nothing

Could have each direction on the d pad work with a long press that had separate customized emote wheels.