Actually, bitmap fonts should work again, Alvin and me tried to make sure it worked, at the least, and this was done with an eye on both emoji as well as font-hinting necessary for CJK fonts. Though, the default fontconfig on many systems will hide the bitmap formats and only show vector formats.
Text tool is currently being rewritten, as it happens, I am currently fighting fonts, though right now I’m getting myself kicked by the UI code, so that’s been slow. You can try to play with the latest nightly to see bitmap fonts working.