The issue:
/usr/share/icons/iconset directory structure seems overly cumbersome. Like Inkscape keeps its ENTIRE UI icon set in a single .svg each one identified by its svg id, why oh why are system icon sets not handled the same way?

For the sake of this idea i'm only considering icons found within the "scalable" directories. Wouldn't a single .svg with all the icons identified with ID's be more manageable and useful for icon/theme designers? For instance it would be a trivial matter to compare 2 files, say work-in-progress.svg vs. complete-icon-set and easily assess completed and yet-to-do icons.

so ...
/usr/share/icons/my-awesome-iconset/applications/scalable could contain ONE svg with the entire category contained in it.

sharing and developing WIP icon sets between collaborators might be a much simpler task. It could lower the bar for end-users to access themes by simplifying the task of installing them. Opendesktop (dot) org theme comments are awash in frustrated end users confused about how to use themes especially if they don't come via a GUI of some kind.

A shift in icon theming like this opens the door to easily develop tools to assist themers way better than that silly "cuttlefish" /plasma theme explorer/look-and-feel explorer.

What say you all?

I like the one icon one file idea. Very easy to maintain

Easy to maintain that one icon. But the whole set?