this may sound shallow and totally unfair to developers but the one thing keeping me from using Gimp is the icons. If only they had a better style and muted tone, and I have tried all icon packages and themes and still can’t get used to them.

Do you you find them too bright in the dark theme?

Bright and chunky. Some of them are weirdly overaized while others lack definition. There is something off that distracts from the work.