I am trying hard to see the point of this article. Is he suggesting that we stop using fonts as icons for buttons and menus? Or assuming that if we did use them

I am trying hard to see the point of this article. Is he suggesting that we stop using fonts as icons for buttons and menus? Or assuming that if we did use them, we wouldn't have the good sense to ensure they look essentially the same across the board? If your argument is "they don't look good at X size": don't use them at that size. And don't bother using sprites, either because the milage will vary greatly. If your argument is "they have a huge kb footprint": don't use web fonts that suck. For every negative (so far, just one or two) point against @font-face, I can find 2 or 3 positive, more important points. Creating time-wasting sprites with multiple colors and then a giant section in my stylesheet aligning all of these "icons" is bullshit compared to the simplicity of @font-face. If this anti-@font-face banter is by purists, you don't really understand what a purist is, or your definition is wildly obsolete.