Struggles towards application icons... (as hard as they are to draw at 48x48, they will be even worse at smaller size)
Ideally, we need scalable, 48x48, 32x32, 22x22 icons. 16x16 Doesn't seem commonly used for application icons.
Take a look at Tomaz's new set of application icons here
These icons are based on the gedit icon from the GNOME icon theme.