Emma (and others), when I first saw this "Hidden from Students" label I thought, hmmm, this is new (and different.) It never really bothered me. In fact, it was more helpful to other instructors who don't use Moodle for me to say "See, these items are hidden." So my first reaction to this discussion was "I don't see any problem with it."
But then I started experimenting. I applied the CSS code to hide these labels, and I thought "For me, this is a little cleaner, and I am the only user of my moodle so I know my color scheme for hidden items." I noticed that this CSS code does not hide this "Hidden from Students" for Topics, just items within topics. Well, in my case, hidden topics are not as obvious so I actually like the words "Hidden from students" showing for topics.
Then I got to noticing that if a topic is hidden, that individual items within a topic that might be hidden do not normally show "hidden from students" until the topic is unhidden. This puzzled me. For me, I actually would like the words "Hidden from students" to show within hidden topics. This would allow me to administratively recognize that I want certain items hidden when I unhide a topic.
So these words "Hidden from student" I believe are more useful within hidden topics than to unhidden topics. When a topic is hidden, all items take on the hidden color scheme, and there is no visual cue to let one know that there are also items within this hidden topic that are (or in my case, are NOT hidden) prior to tuning on a topic. Does anyone else see what I am seeing? Any agreement?
So what I would favor is maybe an all or none situation. If "hidden from topics" remains, it should always show for any hidden item, even if a topic is hidden. Otherwise, I plan to remove "hidden from students" from items, because it adds nothing to what I already know, and leave "hidden from students" showing for topics.
So Emma, I agree with you. I just think that this "hidden from students" also would be beneficial for hidden items within hidden topics.
(Using Moodle 3.4, Boost, and Collapsed Topics.)