... or you can type the ALT code basically in any other program/browser tab and Alt- or Ctrl-Shift between your open program depending what you had open.
I know it is a silly little thing but why would anyone override ALT code typing? (insert smiley face here)😄
I guess because Adobe wanted specific hotkey for common visualizations, and didn't consider that numbers are also used in standard special character codes?

Many programs create specific hotkeys (it's pretty common practice to be honest), but not all of them would need to access the special character mapping (or in this case, they didn't look to see if the user stopped typing the full character sequence)....
For instance, in MS Office programs Alt+1 makes a smiley face, Alt (hold) 1-4-7 produces an "ô" character.. I guess the JS that Adobe wrote sees the Alt+1 and creates a new Freeform, instead of waiting for the entire 1-4-7 sequence...
You could try to log that as a ticket, but I don't know if or when they might address that...