> When that happens, will we be left with a useless ecosystem surrounding a fundamentally inflexible core
I'm not sure what you're referring to here. Bootstrap's use of font icons? If font icons ever became an issue, they could easily[1] swapped out of such frameworks.
Also note that font icons are also useful in places that can only display text, but allow for changes in fonts. You can see people make use of such icons for things like (e.g.) displaying the weather in xmobar or dzen.
[1] Might be a bunch of work on the back-end, but I don't see how the interface would change all that much. You get the icons now by just applying a class to an element, just the behind-the-scenes CSS would have to change.
I'm not sure what you're referring to here. Bootstrap's use of font icons? If font icons ever became an issue, they could easily[1] swapped out of such frameworks.
Also note that font icons are also useful in places that can only display text, but allow for changes in fonts. You can see people make use of such icons for things like (e.g.) displaying the weather in xmobar or dzen.
[1] Might be a bunch of work on the back-end, but I don't see how the interface would change all that much. You get the icons now by just applying a class to an element, just the behind-the-scenes CSS would have to change.