From what I understand keeping the wording “Blog at WordPress.com / The Simfo Theme.” needs to stay per the rules, but can the small smiley face a few lines lower be hidden?
Sure, that’s the WordPress “stats smiley” but it can be hidden with some custom CSS, which it looks like you’ve figured out. The !important bit shouldn’t be necessary, this should do the trick:
#wpstats {
display: none;
}
Just let me know if you need further help with this.