You have a point there about svg sprites.
However if the sprites are included inline it will be both messy html code and you can not cache the icons. Fonts are as far as I know cached by the browser, just like css and js files. Inline sprites are not.
Both have their benefits so it’s good to have as much information about them before taking a decision.
Me personally, I use an icon font when building tools and svg files when building websites.