Add compatibility with old menu declaration (for old plugin modules)
3rd party plugin modules relied on the _menu.php file to display an icon for accessing with specific var names that got changed so compatibility was broken. It's easy to maintain compatibility by looking for the old variables declaration and position the old menus on the new menu structure if existant.
eg.: Old vars in _menu.php were: $menu_dropdown_config[] $menu_dropdown[]
If you add this old arrays content to the $menu['sidebar']['emoncms'][] array it will display on the new menu emoncms area and making perfectly functional modules not updated to work again.
Of course this should be done outside of the old plugins modules... Careful planning when developing new features gets better software without compromises.
It's a good point, will consider for next update, thanks