| I have an opinion on the iconics in general. I don't care about them. This is a bad thing if you're a publisher. You know who I care about? Elminster, Drizzt, Alias and Dragonbait, Tenser, Bigby, Mordenkainen, Tasha, and so on.
If you want to have iconic characters in your product's artwork, give people a reason to care about them beyond "there's that hot barbarian chick again." Make them important to the game. Mialee was supposed to be an iconic wizard, so why was there never a spell called "Mialee's Inspiration" or some such. Why wasn't one of the tactical feats called "Redgar's Gambit?" Why were supposed to care about these characters? the mini-replays? Maybe if the characters were stars of a replay series that was printed every month in Dragon, then i would start to care about them.
But seeing the same characters again and again doesn't make me feel any particular fondness for them. Of course, this can be a double-edged sword, too... people hate Drizzt as much as they love him. | 
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