I’m not surprised that you should mention the icicle hitch, since it is essentially the same knot as what I described, except for how the working end is fixed. The way both knots grip the pole is exactly the same. But there is a difference which is important to me: When you pull on the standing part of the icicle hitch in many different directions and not just parallell to the pole in the intended direction, or if you shake it or jerk it, you will find that the icicle bend is less secure than the method i advocate. My knot, which is finished like a running bowline (it is, in fact, topologically identical to a running bowline) will not come loose under those circumstances. It is the tail of the icicle hitch that worries me. It CAN slip, even if it usually does not. But the running bowline, and therefore also the variation of it with some round turns (the one I described), will become tighter when pulled on in any direction.
So the advantage of my favoured method is that it is ridiculously secure. The disadvantage is that it takes longer to tie it, especially if you don’t know a quick method for forming the running bowline. I make use of the overhand noose method for tying the bowline around the standing part. The ordinary method results in a bowline that is too large, and trying to tie a really small eye with that method is too difficult for me. I would really like to learn some quick and easy way to tie a very small fixed eye (post-eye-tiable) around a rope. Even the method I just mentioned (overhand noose around the working end; capsize into bowline configuration) is too awkward and clumsy, and I’m not happy with it.