I remember it distinctly from launch, the cogs were more inside the circle and in a different orientation: http://venturebeat.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/screen-shot-2...
The three icons removed were the cog, the map, and the twitter face.
Edit: Here is a comparison image from further down the page: http://imgur.com/IH1osAD
I know other people have discussed it, but my search engine skills are too weak to find anything at the moment.
Remember Svbtle?
Someone very quickly ripped it off.
There was intense discussion. Some people felt it's fair game to rip off the design. Other people felt it was a poor copy. Others were angry that it was such a blatant rip off (especially because it was so bad).
I've tried to describe this as neutrally as possible, but I understand it will sound pretty biased.
a svbtle page: http://benyu.org/net-worth
obtvse page: http://jackdempsey.me/migrating-to-obtvse
wp-svbtle: http://wp-svbtle.themeskult.com/
I believe obtvse at the time of the dispute was more directly ripping off svbtle than it is now, but I could be misremembering.
The unintentional pretentiousness of svbtle was amusing at the time and I can remember the urge to create a clone and replace the dammned kudos hover trap with a fontBomb[1].
Even then it's a good idea to put up a quick and easy comparison sheet.
But for things like "3 cogs" (cogs are different sizes, different colours, different numbers of teeth, different orientation) it's ridiculous to DMCA it. 3 Cogs is so generic that it's an annoyance to engineers. (Because the cogs are usually drawn in such a way that they cannot possibly turn).
HN is generally pretty good when people rip off a design. Even people like me (who have very little idea about design) respect the amount of work and expertise that goes on. But it's because I have so little clue about design that people need to explain the similarities. If you're the first people to curl a newspaper under then tell me that. Show me what people used to do, and how you innovated that.