Yeah, dedicated raster 16x16 and 32x32 versions and then a vector version if larger icons are required seems like the best approach.
I understand what they're trying to do with including the icon as metadata, but since they control the filesystem format as well, couldn't they just increase the storage available so they could store an extra kb or so? I'd expect that on modern hardware, reducing the number of reads by stuffing bytes into odd corners of each file's metadata is far less effective than just arranging a block of data to be read all at once.
I understand what they're trying to do with including the icon as metadata, but since they control the filesystem format as well, couldn't they just increase the storage available so they could store an extra kb or so? I'd expect that on modern hardware, reducing the number of reads by stuffing bytes into odd corners of each file's metadata is far less effective than just arranging a block of data to be read all at once.