We're getting into subjective stuff, but for me once I get more than 3 notification icons up there what I get from glancing at it is less "here are the specific notifications you have" and more "you have a lot of things you need to address". I think I generally don't get a benefit out of having 8 or whatever notifications visible at once.

I get that it is still a downside. It may not be a big downside for everybody though.