Right now; icon registry is simple enough. however if you were to make an icon affected by a custom set variable from an ItemStack NBT. there's a few areas that will not be applied.

 

The way to overcome this now is to make an ItemRenderer and attempt to make an identical render as normal. but if the getIconIndex(ItemStack) itself were not final; items would simply be able to use their own traits to determine the variable, and be able to fluently set up their icons

You may do a workaround with render passes, like this:

@Override
@SideOnly(Side.CLIENT)
public boolean requiresMultipleRenderPasses() { return true; }

@Override
public int getRenderPasses(int metadata) { return 1; }

@Override
public Icon getIcon(ItemStack stack, int pass) { return ...; }

Yen, I've noticed that. seems to work fine enough. But. it just seems pointless to put final there anyway

the final modifier is there so nothing can change his actual value, maybe because theres no point in changing it, or changing it might cause (severe)issues. Ijs

the final modifier is there so nothing can change his actual value, maybe because theres no point in changing it, or changing it might cause (severe)issues. Ijs

 

It's a final method which calls a non-final method.  The "final" in this case appears to be completely arbitrary.