Possible, but in the case of the desktop appearance it definitely doesn't look intentional.
I'm partly guessing the icon was not designed with the desktop in mind, because if you get the new launcher and then uninstall the old one, there is never a prompt (that I saw) to even put a desktop shortcut down at all.
It does appear to be a UWP issue, but I'd wonder if it couldn't be resolved by either:
1) using a flat-face icon instead that uses the full area (like the side of a grass block) or
2) automatically assigning a different icon texture to the desktop shortcut?