If the re-branding is going to coincide with a shift away from anonymity I think the DASH dev knows something we don't, perhaps some flaw not yet disclosed to general public was discovered which is so fatal to anonymity that only re-purposing and re-braning the whole project makes sense.
Absolutely not!!
Evan has been quite open since the beginning that DRK was NEVER created to serve the dark markets and illegal activity. He created Xcoin with X11, and very intelligently changed to a snappier Darkcoin - which made perfect sense at the time
BTC
LTC
DRK
It was the logical progression and a smart name change!!
A year in cryptos is more than dog years. Mt.Gox seems decades ago, but in reality it was just about 1 year ago.
Darkcoin has evolved into something MUCH bigger than its original premise! And the name is holding us down.
Things have changed considerably, and with so much bullshit scamming/silk roads/Ulbrichs/Karpeles/Green a.k.a. Kennedy/Shreems etc etc etc... "dark" is not going to help one bit.
That does NOT MEAN that a name change will change the fundamental "mission statement" made when he created XCoin originally.
There is NO issue with Darksend, in fact the new masternode blinding system is quite impressive. The mission statement will remain the same with the addition that we want to challenge the monopoly that Bitcoin has on the space. I think it's quite unhealthy if it grows to be the only game in town.