Even with a gamepad being able to move across a grid will be a lot faster than scrolling up and down a list. It's starting to really get to me how annoying moving up and down a list is and I played FF11 with a gamepad for like 7-8 years.

Re: Icons, information will undoubtedly pop up when your cursor is over an item and if you are wanting to look at your item list at a glance its easier to see when everything is laid out and visible for you. Like Hulan brought up, crafting is going to be done by selecting recipes instead of selecting the item out of the list removing the only real issue with any items that may look similar to each other.