What's that sound you hear? It's Disney/EPCOT fans all over the world rejoicing that the 'Mickey Wand' is being removed from Spaceship Earth. While the wand is interesting to look at from a structure/engineering standpoint, it never fit with EPCOT. From the Sentinel article:

Epcot Vice President Jim MacPhee announced this morning that the time has come to remove the structure, which has served both as a colorful, lighted Epcot sign since 2000, and as a lightning rod for criticism from Epcot purists who contended the image was out of character for Epcot's architecture.