PS: I think that the MC 12 icon would have advanced with the default theme “noire”. Perhaps a little more black, and transparency.
I thought so too when they switched from the BlueSteel skin as default in MC10 to ThunderStorm with MC11 (more purple, less blue). It was explained to me at the time that the MC logo is the "branding" of Media Center and they want it to be consistent. Makes sense to me now that I know more about branding.
That said... The Icon did get spiffed up a little in this release along with lots of the other artwork. I think it's mostly good (I don't like the Playing Now icon, as it just looks like a blob in Noire but oh well).