It's not that I like Sesshomaru (I like his kid brother more, but he's taken), it's that I am looking at the icons for their pictorial value more than the subject matter. I would get rid of one with bleeding colors or too much detail before going for the character's pose. I give more credit to closer cropping and larger images with cleaner contrast and little or no color noise in the image than to the angle of the shot.
Also, Sesshomaru has few appearances in the series and therefore fewer available shots to choose from when making an icon.
Example, I have a problem with a full body shot that was originally intended for a 20 foot high movie screen being crammed into an 80 x 80 pixel icon more than with an expanded shot of an eye. Visually, the eye is more impressive. I don't mind it going, though, because it contains so little information that I may not necessarily be able to associate it with the character it is intended to portray. However, some of the other images don't make as much sense from a purely aesthetic point of view.
And when have you ever seen me sport a Sesshy icon, outside of the Christmas one?