Greyscale Neocon Menu Icons -- Quicker To Identify?

In a prior update, CCP changed the neocon menu items from colored to greyscale colorless.  Many of us were left wondering whether this was truely an attempt to improve the game, or if it was just change for the sake of change.

Those within CCP stated numerous times that it was quicker and easier to identify the greyscale icons than the prior colored icons.  The explanations were very touchy feely and the general message was that you have to try it out to realize they are better.

These greyscale icons have now been with us for awhile, and I'm still not convinced they are better.  They certainly don't look better.  They look worse.  Or at least, they are less appealing.  Photography, television, and motion pictures all went from black and white to color, and most considered this an improvement.  Any time black and white is championed today in any of those medias, it is only for what I will call "artsy fartsy" reasons.

So I did a little research to try to find studies that addressed the topic of symbol recognition performance for greyscale versus colored symbols.  There are studies out there.  Examples include "The role of colour in implicit and explicit memory performance." by Vernon and Lloyd-Jones, and also "The Influence of Colour on Memory Performance: A Review" by Mariam Adawiah Dzulkifli and Muhammad Faiz Mustafar, both available through the web sites for the National Institutes of Health and the National Center for Biotechnology Information.  The general findings from these studies seem to suggest -- and I quote this from the latter source -- "participants took faster time to recognise objects in the coloured than non-coloured condition.". 

These studies would seem to refute the reasoning provided by those who have commented on it within CCP.  This leaves a couple of possibilities (not mutually exclusive mind you).

1. That they really believe the greyscale icons are quicker to recognize based merely on their own gut feelings, in which case, perhaps they shouldn't trust those gut feelings and instead look for more authoritative and well tested hypotheses on such matters.
2. That the reasoning wasn't just for icon recognition performance, in which case, they should just own up to having done it to satisfy their own style of artsy fartsy.

Personally, my money is on the artsy fartsy.  Hey CCP, that's fine; it's your game to do with as you wish, but step up to the plate and admit you did it just for the sake of your own artistic preferences.