Comment 3 for bug 1012204

Unfortunately, I share the exact same view as you do. Unfortunately x2, it's even more of a headache in 14.04. It seems as if the icons were switched to SVG to allow for better scaling on HiDPI screens, but at the expense of the pips being much smaller than before and the highlights of the icons being almost identical from their idle state.

I reported my own bug report and haven't had that much activity on it, granted it's still a young report, although it's been listed as 'low importance', which of course given the fact there's little/no way to decipher an icon's status, this has me a little concerned to say the very least. Still crossing my fingers there...

Here are some examples in 14.04 with Skype in particular:

http://oi62.tinypic.com/nxjgh3.jpg

http://oi59.tinypic.com/21mi1w0.jpg

From bug report: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity/+bug/1304073

See how there's literally no difference? It's such a minor difference it's difficult to see even when you're actively watching the icon switch back and forth, let alone having to look at an icon when you get back to your computer to quickly see "does this application need attention?" As it stands now, it's clearly a broken feature as it's pretty much impossible to tell the difference.

Hopeful that there's a quick resolution. I'd certainly hate to see the next LTS be stuck with something like this throughout its cycle.