I think the phycological response problem, is having to deliberately look at the icon location, rather than being able to just glance at the screen and broadly understand what is what.
Hmm, might this be somewhat related to your color configurations? I seem to have much more contrast.
I just noticed though that it seems that in C15 (I am on C14, only have 15 LE), Steinberg also removed the ability do delete a plugin by using the backspace key in the plugin selector, after already removing the del key option in C13. Why the *** do Steinberg hate key commands that much?? Really makes me angry…