Yeah I don't think he was complaining so much about the icon per say; more that every game developer has to make a save game system that handles corruption rather than calling a save api.
If it was done via an api then the xbox could automatically show the 'saving' icon, delay switch off until the save is complete, and handle corrupt save files with a lot less work per developer...
My understanding is that games on the current generation of consoles are assumed to corrupt your save if power is lost while saving. The response from the certification process of these consoles is to warn the user about this every time every game starts rather than to require a robust save system.
If it was done via an api then the xbox could automatically show the 'saving' icon, delay switch off until the save is complete, and handle corrupt save files with a lot less work per developer...