> The advantage of vector based formats is that their quality remains
regardless of their size.
This is not completely true. Overly detailed images will likely going to look
blurry at small scales, while less detailed images are simply going to look
bad at bigger sizes.
> I cannot understand why they should be the preferred choice when disigning
an icon for a specific target dimension.
I'm sorry but I forgot to add a comma before "and". I meant "designing" and
"optimizing" separately, not together.