We put a beautiful wallpaper on the Desktop. Ahhhh.

Along comes a Luddite and puts icons on it, totally ruining its beauty. For fsck's sake! Just No.

Thankfully, along comes GNOME and it just says No.

I agree.

If you want a pristine desktop, don't put icons there. If I want to put icons on my desktop, it's none of your f'ing business.