Due to the initial failures and poor reception of Phenom, it's been speculated that AMD was getting ready to drop the brand altogether and move on to something else in an attempt to start fresh. It wouldn't be surprising, and in many ways would make a lot of sense. That's not the case, though, as it seems AMD will be retaining the Phenom label and instead will seek to rebuild damaged credibility for the line with their newer CPUs.
A recent statement from AMD has more or less confirmed that Phenom is here to stay, and that their focus will be in keeping their product line simple. They believe that the brand itself isn't really damaged and a simple suffix change will make things right.
We'll see. CPU naming schemes come and go, and we've seen both Intel and AMD switch repeatedly between using clock frequencies as opposed to PR ratings and arbitrary numbers multiple times. Maybe they are putting more weight into a name than they should.