Two things can be true at the same time.
The fact that there really is an icon named “Original” that is locked away does not help. The old icon simple isn’t there at the moment as far as I could see.
So even if they changed the icon for /r/places the fact that you won’t even see the old icon in the selection and that it’s nowhere mentioned that that is the reason for the (temporary) change will properly lead enough just buy premium. Hopefully users that forget to cancel once the normal icon is back.
So I guess now you can get your tweets pushed without disclosing that you payed for it…?