GUIs (and especially buttons) are most useful for things I do infrequently. Frequent tasks are better done by keyboard shortcuts or command line utilities anyway. The only places where I routinely click on label-less icons are in the menu bar/system tray and my browser's always-visible toolbar.

I guess both of those places are especially space constrained, which maybe makes it feel more worth it to me. And I also actively arrange all the items in both cases, choosing not just the arrangement but which will show at all. That means I know them basically as soon as I throw them down.

I wonder if it would be crazy to have the labels on shown-by-default buttons fade only after a certain number of clicks on them.

> I guess both of those places are especially space constrained, which maybe makes it feel more worth it to me.

See how easy it is to justify "the scourge"? Also, this is exactly the same situation here - using a permanent toolbar on your main screen (not a submenu or some secondary settings screen where extra labels don't cost anything)

> crazy to have the labels on shown-by-default buttons fade only after a certain number of clicks on them.

Great idea, had the same, though an even better is to use frecency as a proxy for memory everywhere (and also apply it to various tips and keybinds etc) - if you've clicked the button 10 times, the label disappears, but if you haven't clicked in a year, it reappears (all configurable per button of course, OS-wide, there are some frequently use symbols like clipboard that you'll never forget due to use in other apps)