Personally I dont care if they are little squares like we had ages ago, or plane icons. I thought the ful dar just made it much more fun. Action was easy to find whether it was a couple guys, or a horde.
I'm guessing that you and other vocal supporters of the dar variants are fighter pilots who are smart enough to up from a non-front-sector base and have alt when they get to the front. But by then, the action to which you were headed has sometimes evaporated and you have to scoot along somewhere else. This is the only explanation I can think of for people complaining that they "cannot find a fight" because, except in very early morning US time, fights in my experience are
never hard to find. You just have to be willing to accept them on less than optimal terms sometimes.
I'm sticking around to see what HT comes up with, but both of the variants tested so far spoil the game for me. I am primarily a bomber pilot, and I need caution and alt to get to a place where I can survive a fighter onslaught. It's easy to tell what icon is a bomber (even if it looks the same as a fighter) based on where it ups from, its speed, and how it flies. I've watched enemy fighters figure this out and point toward me 2 sectors away while I'm still low and slow and it's just not my idea of fun to be jumped by something with tons more E well before I have a chance to get to target.