> In the past when there have been icon conflicts -- that has been a *packaging*
> problem for packagers to handle when it does not effect everyone TDE wide.
 
The problem for Debian/Ubuntu can be solved in the packaging scripts, using different paths for the same icon (for example moving the icons back to their original position).
Nevertheless it is *never* a good idea to have two different packages (regardless of the distribution used) having files going into the same location. There is no problem when you install (you just overwrite the file and probably don't even notice the problem), but it you remove a package then you can break another one.
So IMO it would be better to use different locations for the icons for all distributions, not just Debian/Ubuntu.

Cheers
  Michele