I've heard that argument... used multiple times, for an application which would basically never be in any other language but English.

the RTL languages are also a pain point, and even German can make your UI designing difficult for length of words. Really, the high variability of width for i18n'ed words in general is I think where the icon-heavy approach originated.

The question of whether that's a good thing is a different matter, however.

No it isn't. That's why hieroglyphics became indecipherable for nearly 2000 years, while all the various alphabetic systems invented during that time--and many of those invented long before--remained readable.