Regarding front page

From a long-time player's perspective, using the icons would be easier, but for beginners it would be harder.

From a beginners perspective, NPCs tell you the skills by their names, not by their icons. Hovering over each icon to find the name of the skill is rather more work for navigation. You shouldn't have to hover over icons to find the correct item in a list. If hovering over icons was adding function, then that would be one thing, but it's not adding function in this case; it's purely for aesthetics.

Also, having a player look at the bottom right/left of their browser, to check if the link is correct, is more work than it needs to be.