True, true... maybe a year, and/or a limit to how many you could receive. And a reject gift button, heh. But even at a dollar each it seems that they still generate more money per icon than upgrading an account to get more icons does, if that makes any sense. The price jump from a year's paid to a year's premium paid is $15 or whatever with 125 more icons. If you were to add 125 icon gifts one by one that's quite a lot more money per icon even at a dollar or less each. Ditto free to premium. I don't know if that means they'd pay for themselves, but it does still ensure there is still a sound reason for users to treat the gift system as it is intended and/or upgrade. Assuming they are self-destruct.

And you could still save and re-upload the picture as a non-"free" icon, assuming you have the space, so it's not like the gift really self-destructs per se. I dunno. In fact, I dunno to an impressive degree. It may well be utterly financially and coding-ly impractical. But as far as v-gifts go, I know I personally am far more likely to give someone something I have made/written/scribbled in MSPaint as an e-present, unless I am so unfamiliar with them that I HAVE to give them something generic, in which case I'm not sure why I'd be giving them a gift but hey, you never know.

Although maybe that means I'm just cheap. :p