The main reason is that I need the icons in discrete format (one icon per
file, internal SVG dimensions 48x48 pixels). I haven't had the time to rip
out all the icons from the monolithic Tango icons file, and doing this
programatically is not currently possible because some aspects of Inkscape's
CLI aren't working right. Look at
http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/Themable_icons - those are the icon
names that are needed.