The idea behind hiding the panel is to reclaim the desktop space formerly occupied by the panel. Maximized windows resize themselves and icons rearrange themselves, by design. This is a request to change deliberately chosen designed-in behavior, so I'm assigning severity to 'wishlist', but I agree. It's annoying.
** Changed in: Ubuntu Severity: Normal => Wishlist Status: Unconfirmed => Confirmed -- KDE panel hiding messes up desktop icons https://launchpad.net/bugs/43155 -- kubuntu-bugs mailing list kubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/kubuntu-bugs