Not going to happen.
If you would like to create a better favicon.ico, I am open to looking at your alternative, but I will *not* be putting back the old one, nor any that are designed based on the way the old one looked. It would have to be a custom hand drawn icon, and the size is 16x16 px.
Here's a cool tool you can use, without even needing any other graphics tools:
http://www.favicon.cc/ -- it will show in the tab/title the new icon as you are drawing it. Pretty nifty.
If no one can create a new one that I absolutely love, the gold icons is what it will be.