The keyboard icon is because of we hit the API freeze before the original bug of showing which is the current layout was fixed, we can't change the API now therefore the icon is there to stay.
You can, turn on "show_flags" in gconf, and get a pack of flag files extracted into ~/.icons/flags this will make turn the indicator into just an icon, which indicates the current layout.
The keyboard icon is because of we hit the API freeze before the original bug of showing which is the current layout was fixed, we can't change the API now therefore the icon is there to stay.
You can, turn on "show_flags" in gconf, and get a pack of flag files extracted into ~/.icons/flags this will make turn the indicator into just an icon, which indicates the current layout.