I don't quite understand the comment here.  Are you referring to the debug code? the namespace?

Maybe I should add some theory of operation (can add to the `.cc` or elsewhere)
* When in `NODE_HAVE_SMALL_ICU` mode, ICU's is linked against a "stub" data entry ( stubdata/libicudata.a ) containing nothing, no data,  and it's also linked against a "small" data file which the `SMALL_ICUDATA_ENTRY_POINT` macro names. That's the "english+root" data.
  * If `icu_data_path` is non-null, the user has provided a path and we assume it goes somewhere useful. We set that path in ICU, and exit.
  * If `icu_data_path` is null, they haven't set a path and we want the "english+root" data. We call into `udata_setCommonData(SMALL_ICUDATA_ENTRY_POINT,…)` to load up the english+root data. 
* when NOT in `NODE_HAVE_SMALL_ICU` mode, ICU is linked directly with its full data. All of the variables and command line options for changing data at runtime are disabled, as they won't fully override internal data - http://bugs.icu-project.org/trac/ticket/10924