;-) While seperate icons are useful, 24-bit could be viewed as overkill, or just eye candy. On the other hand, eye candy sells.
:-D But why stop at 24 bits? I would like to see 32 bits icons with a transparency layer, or alpha channel. Thus, icons could have translucent sections, or real shadows instead of the medium gray shadows they have now.
;-) Of course, it's far too late in the game to add such a feature into OS4; better to wait for OS5 on that score. (Unless it's already been added in...)