Notification icon spacing.

This is a very minor detail but I'm wondering why there is a bigger gap between the network icon and all other icons in the notification area? It looks wrong.

Also, why did they change it from 'system tray' to the linux term?

Cheers

Its just how Microsoft made the notification area. Thats Microsoft for you.

LoL, well now I know.

The tray has sections. The clock, volume control and connection status are system items. The others, after the gap, are items added by startup programs, mostly non-Microsoft things.
If you try placing the taskbar at the side instead of top or bottom of the screen, you'll see the two sections are on different lines.

I've no idea whether the visible separation is by design, so you can see which icons belong to Windows, or maybe it's just a programming mistake which they didn't bother to fix.