[jaimebuelta]

My personal rule of thumb is that every diagram that shows more than a couple of AWS icons is likely useless.

First of all, something like 99% of the AWS icons are illegible. You just don't know what they refer to.

Second, if it has a couple of AWS icons it likely has like a hundred of them, connected with arrows in an indecipherable mess.

I personally try to simplify diagrams as much as possible and prefer to talk about function (e.g. DB, App Server) more than technology (e.g. Aurora, Java), but the key element here is to try to avoid trying to put too much dense information in a single diagram which it ends making it very confusing.

[amarshall]

I’d extend it to any icons, not just AWS ones. I agree usually the generic technology is more interesting than the semantic thing. Icons in architecture diagrams are distracting noise. They might be okay if they were smaller, but usually they’re huge and overpower the text.