I commend Kurt Wallace on the job he's done in trying to shake things up and improve the product at WAKW. Although I haven't heard the product (I'm in Michigan) my initial thoughts when I heard they were switching was that they were moving in the right direction.
We, at our station, know from experience that re-branding heritage calls is risky. We re-branded back in 2003 from "WJQ" to "JQ99."
Although the outcome has been mostly positive, we confused a LOT of people who had called us "WJQ" for over 20 years. There are LOTS of people in the community who still refer to us as WJQ. In retrospect, we had a decent product before the re-brand. So we might have done differently if we had it to do over again. We might have refrained from COMPLETELY removing the use of "WJQ." But there are a lot of "ifs" in that equation. So, who knows?
Here's a rule of thumb: Only completely overhaul and re-brand your station if:
A: You're switching format or target audience. (Duh)
B: If the product you're rebranding FROM was so awful that you're in desperate need of completely trashing everything and starting from the ground up. Be aware, it may take years to get everyone to refer to you by your new name.
Many won't 'get' it.