I'm one of those who didn't like the drama die much - especially after I noticed that increasing the difficulty of a task by one meant that the player needed to roll a 6 on the drama die in order to succeed.
Basically, this meant that, if Worf and Quark were in a lifting competition, Quark could win just by rolling a 6 on the drama die while Worf doesn't. So in the end, it comes down to the result of one die for each of them.
I think the ICON system didn't handle well characters who were too far from the average. I had one player in a one shot game who designed a Klingon who, without too much minmaxing, could deck any other character with one punch while at the same time whitstanding the impact of a phaser at setting 8 or 9 IIRC.
However, I never came up with a resolution for what I considered one of the biggest flaws in ICON, mainly since I knew CODA was coming when I started to be annoyed by the flaws of the system.
And as far as the die resolution is concerned, I like to let die decide important things as well, if only to have the players sweat a bit over critical actions. However, I don't think I would ever allow a player to die on a bad roll, unless he was doing something very stupid. Losing a limb, on the other hand, is an interesting alternative, but the case never presented itself so far.
"The main difference between Trekkies and Manchester United fans is that Trekkies never trashed a train carriage. So why are the Trekkies the social outcasts?"
Terry Pratchett