Not sure if the phone will voice dial call 911. Have you tried a voice dial? Can just tell the operator who picks up you were testing the voice calling capabilities of your new phone in the case of an emergency. I know 4S users have said that SIRI will NOT call 911. She responds to your request with, "I am sorry I can not do that." or something.
Nice thing that iOS does is to bring up the phone in the last used config. So if I use the keypad to make a call, next time I enter the phone app, the keypad will be up. If I use recent to make a call, the recent list will be up next time. Very simple to implement I would think.
ICE should not need to be in the dialer every time you enter the phone app. I have used 911 maybe 5 times in the last 20 years. If you are someone who has a job that requires frequent use, I think the tile option would be what you want. No reason for the other 99.999% of us to have the ICE contacts icon in our dialer every time we open the phone. Just increases the chance of miss dial.