tl/dr:
They’re an old spec from 2002
They’re too small to click for people with increased accessibility needs
They serve the needs of app publishers (making their app visible at all times), not those of the user
-> There are too many of them
-> They look bad
Gnome’s official stance on that matter:
https://blogs.gnome.org/aday/2017/08/31/status-icons-and-gnome/
tl/dr:
They’re an old spec from 2002
They’re too small to click for people with increased accessibility needs
They serve the needs of app publishers (making their app visible at all times), not those of the user
-> There are too many of them
-> They look bad
They’re useful, “old” is no excuse. Mobile OS have something similiar. No, don’t create a new spec, you’re bad at that kind of thing.
Make them bigger? I can do that on XFCE.
Again, they are useful to the user. Just give the user a way to control which to display or not.
Your design team sucks
And that’s why i don’t like Gnome (and Gtk for that matter); they prioritize their skewed visions over everything else, including usability.