True, you are gaining the information of the -exact- number of missed calls you have. The information isn't important on the main screen though. The current design tells me about the -absence- of a voicemail, when it has a red (1) on it. That is what I'm losing in this design.
Not always. I have a weird bug with my iPhone where I'll receive voicemails, but the phone itself doesn't ring - others have reported this too (whether it's an O2 UK problem or what, I don't know).
Thus it's actually really useful for me to know if I have a missed call or a voicemail that never rang through. It also confuses the hell out of a system that'd try to guess which missed call the voicemail belongs to...
