I agree the Tribes 1 binds ruled, and ET used the same kind of setup.
I havent messed with the ET chats, but in Tribes 1 you could edit a text file to add your own chats along with how they were said (local, team, voice wav file to go with it, etc) and that simply was awesome. I think I had like 200 chat options when I had mine fully setup. Some users made voice packs also, and there were South Park and Simpsons ones for example.
The benefit of adding your own chats is enormous - I had specific map ones like on Raindance I had “Heavy O coming through the valley!” - everyone on my team knew that soon a HO would be cresting the hill in front of the base. The downside is the swearing, racism, and leet chats many made, but with a good filter these should be able to be squashed before they reach the screen.
I got so good at knowing the 3 key combo for chats that voice chat simply wasn’t necessary, and this was awesome on pubs where any game is played the most anyway; and where voice chat is rarely used by a whole team.
I really hope QW’s allows custom chats.