No, I agree. I think that the artists should be respected and credited. I'm a fanartist myself, and I know quite a few; I also do graphics and icons. I'm not denying that there's a considerable amount of originality on either ends, because the idea of measuring something like that is entirely objective. There's also a considerable amount of originality going into making a 100x100 square. That goes either way.

What I'm saying is that icon makers can't whine that other people aren't crediting them when they take images and make icons out of them without crediting the original artist.