I think if possible, it's imperative to at least have the option to remove the icon (on rooted phones at least.) Now that the old Theft Aware functionality is bundled in with AV - and not only that, but a pretty well-known AV - people are going to know that Avast for Android comes with some pretty stealthy anti-theft options and to me that's a big issue, unless you can hide the fact that Avast is installed at all... that means (so far as I can see) removing the ongoing notification AND removing Avast from the app drawer and the only way to access ANY Avast functionality being via the dialler, as was the case with Theft Aware.
Just my tuppence worth, anyway.