I kind of love this rant for you and just generally too (for reals), so I won't critique it beyond saying that, I get avoiding confusion - but I think that actually cuts both ways here.
Presumably, WotC would prefer if 12 year olds in Target or grandmas on Amazon purchased the latest version of D&D, and I think they insist on making the distinction so small as to be "2014 core rulebooks" vs "2024 core rulebooks" they may find people are, in fact, confused. Certainly given the flat-out huge improvements they sound to be making with the DMG, and the big strides in super-friendliness they discussed with the PHB, and the probably much-improved MM, I'd want my customers buying those, even if I was in no way invested in the actual rules-changes.
So I think not changing the branding, not having a new name, is a double-edged sword. At least for the first year or three whilst the older books are in inventories and on sale, it will cause some problems.
(I'd also say that the bizarre and transparently false (and I do mean factually false not "opinion I disagree with") claims Crawford made about 3E > 3.5E were very strange to make to a bunch of hobbyists and experts, but that's who they made them to, but that's a separate issue.)