Screenshot of result: http://quick-markup.com/p/503155c8481a5

Could you update the Less file(s) too?

I removed the btn-micro stuff.
Changing the code to make it use btn-mini also affects other buttons (like the lock) which you do want as btn-micro. So will have to look into it deeper or just leave it.

Please create a tracker on joomlacode.
There is already one related. http://joomlacode.org/gf/project/joomla/tracker/?action=TrackerItemEdit&tracker_item_id=28944

The latest update using less and going w/ the btn success/warning/danger/etc colors looks much better

I suggest using a different icon for Default and Featured, or at least a different color.
Maybe the capital A ?
http://postimage.org/image/41pxuvua7/

Ohhh this is very nice! Colors are really important for usability!

Tracker http://joomlacode.org/gf/project/joomla/tracker/?action=TrackerItemEdit&tracker_item_id=28962

Because it is redundant. CSS for .icon-trash:before is defined a few lines further:

.icon-purge:before,
.icon-trash:before {
  content: "\4c";
}

Gotcha.

I agree, it would be nice to leave the star for featured and use something different for default. Here's the list http://kyleledbetter.com/icomoon/
I'm thinking icon-bookmark or icon-pin (i'm aware that those could also have different connotations)

What about icon-flag?

How about the flag for featured and the star for default? That'd be my intuition.

We could also keep the star for default too, just via another classname, so that the color can be different (blue).

I think icon-bookmark would be ok for default too... but not sure it looks like anything when used inside a button.

icon-bookmark looks good for featured
http://s19.postimage.org/n5sy9mfbn/Screen_Shot_2012_08_22_at_09_16_48.png

pin may be too thin, here in gold, but IMHO, it is the icon which best describe the function

http://s19.postimage.org/rsz0be2oj/pin.png

maybe flag is also too thin
http://s19.postimage.org/edbzlxu6r/flag.png

Suggestion: normalize Pinned Banners to use the same icon as Featured.

We should keep the star for Default, as this has always been used for that purpose.

Joomla! for "featured/home page/default" uses a star from ages, i think we should keep using it...

I think they would all be ok especially given the presence of the descriptive button above.

The "pinned" might be better used for articles pinned to the top of a blog. I like the clean look of the bookmark, but I think the flag is a better context.

Is there any major reason to avoid the star? We have the Home Menu, Default Templates and Featured Articles which are all different contexts so can't readily be confused.

Featured does not use the star in 2.5.
Home was using it indeed, but the new icon is great for it.

In 2.5 is a circle with a star inside...

I think it makes sense to keep the (gold colored) icon-star for default. For featured, icon-pin seems to make the most sense to me. Maybe we keep the gold color for the star and we can use purple or some other color for the featured pin. Thanks for thinking through this everyone, good discussion

Like this?
http://quick-markup.com/p/50354a77484a7

Or does this look better: using icon-bookmark
http://quick-markup.com/p/50354b24ed60d

How about blue for featured? IIRC that was the color used in 2.5, it might help people gasping that intuitively.

Fixed through eclipse. Please open a new tracker for the Featured Icon.