My comment will not address the smaller screens, but I picked up an Icon last night, and those three columns are sure nice on that phone. Where my 928 had enough tiles pinned that I would swipe my thumb 2-3 times to get to the bottom, on the Icon I've got two full screens worth of height, plus one row of small tiles, so I get to the bottom in one swipe. On top of that, I'm using a couple of large tiles where I used medium before, using the wide WPCentral tile where I had used small before, and using several medium tiles where I'd used small. So I'm seeing more information, and swiping less.
Yes, I like it.
On a 480x800 screen, I don't think I would. But as people often say, choice is good.