It is true that a player could simply emote it out, but the type of scenarios I'm thinking of are those where every tools will be used at everyone's advantage, mostly the press TAB. If someone appears into sight on the ground but too far away to see any emote and the player reads "uninjured"', I'd think there would be far lesser chances of RP to occur than if it was written "Near death" or "Dead". On the other hand, if someone is uninjured but emotes that he's covered in blood on a road in the woods, or even in a jail cell, I think it would give more surprising results no one would be expecting it to be fake than having bits of metagaming and skipping maybe the trouble to let yourself be brought near death by squirrel to get desired result.
Again, it depends on how players would rp the response based on the wysiwyg.