I have no problem with companies that change the form of their name - it's the one's that are trying to conceal their past mishaps/misdeeds that I am wary of.
Also fine if there is a good reason - for example, Stem Cell Therapeutics is now changing its name to Trillium, which was the name of the company where their principal asset came from. The company also now has nothing to do with stem cells, aside from the confusion stemming from myriad companies with "stem cell" in their names.
Any rule like this is more of a warning flag than an absolute prohibition. Sometimes failed companies do redeem themselves under new management - Pharmacyclics is the current poster child for this. If they had changed their name they would still have been a good investment.
Interestingly, the old PCYC also had the best example I know of for a zombie program - one that is for all practical purposes dead, but still lives on for ever, with no death notice ever published. That was for their photodynamic therapy for breast cancer:
News 
Market Data 
Discover 
AI
