The article argues that enforcing uniform shapes and styles across icon sets limits each icon’s potential to be distinctive and memorable. It contrasts macOS’s original, varied icons—which excel individually—with modern, systematized icons that sacrifice uniqueness for easy consistency.

• Old macOS icons had no shared shape/material/lighting rules, which made each one distinctive and memorable on its own terms
• Modern Creator Studio-style icons force everything into the same rounded-rectangle frame with matching gradients and depth, making the set look tidy but forgettable
• Rule-based design systems are easy to automate and enforce, but excellence requires judgment and context that can't be reduced to a style guide
• Prioritizing group consistency (shape, stroke, shadow) caps how good any individual icon can be; consistency should instead come from shared quality standards, not matching visual details