As cheesy as the Penguin suit is, couldn't your argument also be applied to the Frog, Raccoon and Tanooki suits in that case? Nintendo is actually keeping with tradition by including a full-body suit in Mario's power-up repertoire.
Well, yeah, I forgot to add that in the original post because I wasn't thinking about it.... but I dunno. The reason I don't mind those suits:
-The Frog Suit made you hop like a frog: hilarious. Also, it was justifiable to have a full suit to let you know the capability of it and because there's really nothing to portray you as a frog when you get it. Frogs don't have ears to strap on Mario, or tails, so I think the only thing they
could do was put him in a frog suit.
-The Tanooki suit is fine because...who knew what a Tanooki was anyway? If they hadn't put him in a full body suit, players might've had a hard time catching on to what it could do since it would've probably heavily resembled Racoon Mario. (Hell, even the Tanooki suit has the racoon tail on it.)
-Racoon Mario...hmm, I don't really consider a tail and ears to be a suit.
Point being, I think Nintendo puts Mario in suits only when they have no idea how to portray the power-up. When the power-up gets a little harder to understand than say, Cape Mario, or Racoon Mario, or there's no way to really portray it simply (Frog Mario, Tanooki Mario), they'll throw a suit on him.
They could've portrayed the ice power-up simpler than putting him in a penguin suit. If Mario finds an Ice Flower and his clothes transform to an icy theme like I mentioned in my first post, I think players would be able to understand what the power-up does. They didn't put Mario in a full flower suit when you got a Fire Flower back then, so they shouldn't put Mario in a full body suit when he gets an Ice Flower now.
Same goes for the Propeller suit. Throw wings on his hat or some variation of that (to distinguish it from the Wing Cap). Simple as that.