This seems to be a general issue with quite a few apps that create icons/shortcuts on the homescreen.
Looks to me that the API which is used by the apps to create shortcuts is broken.
Firefox, Contacts & MTK Dual SIM Shortcut are examples of apps that offer shortcut creation which does not work anymore since 1.8. (I had a thread which was closed without providing a solution: Icons do not show up on the homescreen).
Creating shortcuts is only working when done through dragging a widget to the homescreen. This may be a workaround for contacts. But this doesn’t fix the issue; this is definitely an error and needs a solution especially for apps where no workaround is available and so become unusable with 1.8.