This is nonsense. Yes, Microsoft is acknowledging that most intranet sites aren't properly configured to work with all browsers/standard compliant. But that hardly means they're breaking the promise to make IE render web pages in standards mode. This is probably the best solution to the broken intranet sites issue anyone could have come up with.
And the whining about the icon is truly ridiculous. The logic for Microsoft's choice is obvious: "Does the site look broken to you? Click on the broken page button."
The "show intranet sites in compatibility mode" thing is really just an acknowledgement that IE is both a web browser and a general frontend for internal business apps. Should anyone actually give a shit what kind of markup companies use for their internal apps?
If internal sites are written for a buggy platform instead of a standard, it makes it harder to change browsers inside the company. Marketshare! Lock-in! Innovation!
And the whining about the icon is truly ridiculous. The logic for Microsoft's choice is obvious: "Does the site look broken to you? Click on the broken page button."