Actually our designer recommended the change as the quoted text is actually called out more deliberately and is more separated from the writer's thoughts by the icon.
man i expected 20 people to rush on here and thank for me changin it back and stop blinding them and ruining their work day
Wierd, I posted the "THANKS" ^^^ in all CAPS and it came out in lower-case letters - I went to EDIT to see if I was losing my mind - retyped it in CAPS and it swithced back to lower-case.
I can understand why a designer might like the visual effect of that quotation design. But paramount here, especially within the actual portion of the screen that people read, is not visual effect but legibility. And for legibility simple is better.