[Bush2000]

Most people can read more quickly than they can spot an icon and interpret its intended use.

I disagree. People are much more attuned to icons than text.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Context matters. If I have an alphabetized list of menu items, then I can find what I want quickly. Of course when hitting the section of the menu where everything is prefixed by "Microsoft" then the little picture may speed it up. I tend to study the icons on my toolbar for several seconds before picking what I want, expecially since the icons are so similar and the nuisance penalty of bringing up the wrong application is so great! I can't just nip in the bud an unintended invocation of something like Outlook -- not even with ctl-alt-delete unless I am familiar with the underlying executable name of the application -- I have to wait for it to come all the way up, then dismiss it.