Reading the whole conversation on bug 586488 still doesn't make me quite understand the specific need for an icon for a root of a filesystem. Can you explain why drive-harddisk is inappropriate?

The reporter of bug 620085 says that it is difficult to find the File System icon when computer:/// contains a large number of drives.

The other possible reason I can think of is that drive-harddisk does not communicate 'this is my system' particularly well.

Going to the root of a filesystem sounds like a total corner case. What makes it so important to the user?

Bug 620085 does indeed seem to be a bit of a corner case. I suspect that bug 586488 is a distributor specific concern. I've asked for clarification.

(In reply to comment #3)
> Going to the root of a filesystem sounds like a total corner case. What makes
> it so important to the user?

Users exposed to the computer://  has increased since Bug 591458 was fixed. 
Now every time a device is unmounted  , they are taken to computer:// , where it would be preferable to show/identify the default filesystem. 

If we have several partitions , it becomes really hard to exclude or identify the "Filesystem"

Its just an enhancement anyway.

Also to note is that, previously we had different icons being used for mounted and unmounted drives , so the root would always be using the mounted icon.
[The "drive-harddisk" , this was used for mounted filesystem/internal drives
while "gnome-dev-harddisk" was used for unmounted internal partitions]

With gvfs changes, this is no longer possible and drive-harddisk is used always for both mounted and unmounted filesystem and internal partitions. [icons listed in Bug 506532 are used alone.]

Still haven't heard the use case for going to the root of a filesystem. I go there to do what? / is nowhere as important as the camera I plugged in, my photos folder, my documents folder. To me it bears the same importance as /var or /tmp. 

Accessing removable drives previously unmounted is easily achievable by unplugging and plugging it back. That is how I observed my dad do it, that is how I end up doing it too because it's actually faster. I am very fond of the decision to remove unmounted volumes from the sidebar.

I have filed bug 620313 to request that file system entries get hidden when 'Show Hidden Files' is false. Seems relevant.

(In reply to comment #7)
> Accessing removable drives previously unmounted is easily achievable by
> unplugging and plugging it back. That is how I observed my dad do it, that is
> how I end up doing it too because it's actually faster. I am very fond of the
> decision to remove unmounted volumes from the sidebar.

Yeah , this change is good , but the removable media already use a separate icon and does not affect the filesystem/partition confusion in any way.

> Still haven't heard the use case for going to the root of a filesystem. I go
> there to do what? / is nowhere as important as the camera I plugged in, my
> photos folder, my documents folder. To me it bears the same importance as /var
> or /tmp. 

I dont know if there is any use case for user wanting to go there. 
Rather letting the user know "No need to go there" / "This partition is where the system files are[OS is] installed".
It was supposed to be a reminder that stuff in there is read-only. [vaguely recollecting from the old discussion] 
Kinda like how we show the read-only emblem for folders.

Reopening as I think the requested information has been provided.

I can contribute a use case as well: You might want to know how much free space your system partition has. It makes it easier to identify your system partition if there was a, say, Ubuntu Logo on it.

Moving to the -extras component with the intent to add a system drive icon -- drive-harddisk-system

Icon added to gnome-icon-theme-extras