Taste is difficult to define. For some a painting can be gorgeous for others hideous. But you can say something about the technique used, composition etc.
Adobe (Shawn Cheris) has revised their icons for their Creative Suite 5 (aka CS5). They have a distorted form of perspective (isometric grid system) and look like some sort of book cover.
To me the icon suite of Adobe was and still is an epic fail, they look like a rip-off of the periodic table of the chemical elements, but they don’t represent such.
Here’re some of the applications Adobe has to offer: Ai, Ae, Br, Cf, Di, Dw, Fb, Fl, Fw, Fx, Id, Lc, Ps, Pse, Sb. Quite understandable huh… NOT! Do you see which are conceptually incorrect?
People use Photoshop not Adobe Photoshop CSx, so why name it differently? Do you use Ps CS4 or do you use Ps CS5? 
I think a lot has to do with the previous merger of Macromedia, business culture and brand wise.
Icons have to serve first time users and pro’s and have to be inviting for the end user so that he/she clicks on them.
Luckily Apple has given icon developers guidelines for creating these application icons (Human Interface Guidelines).
Here you have some of them:
- Aqua offers a photo-illustrative icon style. Adobe icons FAIL
- Icons express differentiation that help users distinguish between types of applications. Adobe icons FAIL
- A visual cue provided in the application and immediately convey the application’s purpose. Adobe icons FAIL
- Application icons are designed to appear as if they’re sitting on a desk in front of you. They have a slightly diminishing perspective. Adobe icons FAIL
- Correct badging of a document icon. Adobe icons FAIL
So there you have it, a lot of fails for Adobe’s icon suite. Hopefully they do a better job with their icons and interface in the next version of CS6 uhm… Creative Suite 6 
I have to end this post by quoting a friend of mine: “bad taste is also taste”
