Does injecting the SVG before everything, right after opening the <body> hinders page render performance?
Moving the injected SVG to the head solves the render issue, what would happen with page render performance, validation and compatibility (ie)?
PS: live example: http://codepen.io/rhawbert/pen/uAKfw
You can also use a script to load your icons, so it would be deferred and cached. https://gist.github.com/legomushroom/7689480