Why do i Ben ? Most of it is mums because she cant find it otherwise! lol plus its mine and my mums just it was bought for me and im on it most of he time
It won't really make any difference as all it is loading is a load of tiny shortcuts. The main reason for having no icons (aside from the recycle bin) is that you have a really smart and clean looking desktop and not a mess in which you cannot find anything.
Also, get rid of that Vista sidebar - that really does make things take longer to load and it has very little use.