Imo this is the right way to go. Not only were the icons fugly but they served no real purpose when the text right next to it tells you what it’s doing anyway. It didn’t help that most menu entries don’t have icons so its pretty inconsistent throughout the UI.
Like the post says it makes it harder to scan with all those icons in the menu and when some items have icons and others don’t. It doesn’t look good and makes the interface seem half-done. Remove them altogether imo.