For some strange reason, some icons in the System Menu were missing after I did a clean install of Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat. It’s a bit annoying but there’s a really easy fix for this minor inconvenience.
Hit Alt+F2, type in gconf-editor in the Run application. This would open the Configuration Editor. Navigate to the following: “desktop -> gnome -> interface” and simply click on the check-box behind “menus_have_icons” in the right pane.
Restore the System Menu icons using the Configuration Editor (click to zoom)
Click on your System Menu again and voila! The respective icons have now been restored. Easy right?
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Julius aka "Jhay" Rocas has been blogging since 2006. He is a certified geek. New Media publisher/Professional blogger and Internet ninja. Youth activist. He blogs about tech news, gadgets and social commentary. 
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There's the exception regarding dynamic menu items. I believe the stuff directly under the System menu are static unlike those in Applications and Places; the categories in Applications and the bookmarks in Places are configurable, while it doesn't make us much sense to regularly change the Preference and Administration categories under the System menu. That's how I see it at least; it's quite easy to rationalize the various quirks I encounter in Ubuntu. It's something that I find difficult with Windows. Haha.
I believe the System menu icons have been missing since GNOME 2.28/Ubuntu 9.10. Here's why, from the GNOME 2.28 release notes:
"GNOME menus and buttons have been standardized across all applications to not display icons by default. Menu items with dynamic objects, including applications, files or bookmarks, and devices are the exception and can display an icon. This change will standardize the look and feel of menus and present a cleaner interface to users."
So that's why. But if standardization of the look and feel of menus is the aim, shouldn't the default items in the System Menu come with icons since these are present in every install of Gnome/Ubuntu?