I am a returning player and I've always felt the utilization of the act verb is under rated. I have been thinking of making common buttons for my smoking and other things that do the act to make special smoking things happen and so forth. I am wanting feed back from the community, do you feel the act verb is just as good as any other verb or is it a cop out?

ACT is probably the most straightforward way to roleplay without being confined and confused by obscure verb combinations. Besides SAY, all the social verbs are really just fluff and gimmick ways to avoid parens -- and, frankly, the parens really aren't bad. I've heard a few players say they don't like them but, for many players, the alternative to no parens is not to roleplay. Or, it's that they're so busy trying to reverse-lookup what they want to do, they miss the moment completely. ACT absolutely isn't a cop-out. It's what it's there for.

You can also use open-ended verbs like SMILE to add a bit of free-form action but don't over-use it.