It takes me at least 3 times as long to find what I need with these minimalist monochrome icons, though. I always opt to the more colorful ones, if possible.
The submission title makes it a bigger deal than it is, the article clarifies that "The team reasoned that overriding another developer's branding is rude, and it also lacks the resources to maintain the icons as branding changes over time." and "Anyone who misses the old look is welcome to create a new icon theme and upload it to the KDE Store.". Nothing has really changed, especially not newsworthy.
This is KDE's decision on their Breeze theme. Distributions can ship the icon set with third party icons if they want.