Upon the release of the Silk Icon Set (a really smooth free icon set), Joen of Noscope noted that:

Although beau­ti­ful, the feed icon (Feed) lacks the bot­tom left dot that’s part of the now stand­ard­ized feed icon. Does this bother any­one else? Does it even mat­ter? Creative man­date, or style over usability?

When think­ing about sac­ri­fi­cing some aes­thet­ics to improve usab­il­ity or just to adhere to unspoken stand­ards, it’s good to remem­ber this: In most cases, only people who can handle the change will notice.