Monsieur JOSECONLSCREW, I have had the pleasure of reading your posts for quite sometime and irrational would NOT be a word I would connect to you. This has nothing to do with CO or UA, let's look at this from a strictly branding POV:

BusinessFirst was a brilliant concept CO came about when they got rid of their 3-class cabins. CO installed these beautiful seats on their US coast-to-coast and int'l flights (correct me if I'm wrong). At the time (1990ish) other carriers biz class was just a bigger seat and int'l first class was a plush seat with a footrest. What CO did was revolutionary. They got rid of their three-class cabin and called their premium product "BusinessFirst" because it was a hybrid for that period. This then became the term for COs premium cabin fleet-wide (again please correct me if wrong). THEN Delta got rid of their first cabins and called it "BusinessElite," KLM/NW followed with "World Business Class".

Now in this day and age, most global airlines have cattle class/premium coach, lie-flat in biz, and suites in first. Each airline has their own branding for each of their respective classes.

Any airline with three classes - coach, business and first - referring to them as Economy/Economy Plus, BusinessFirst, and First is confusing. Looking at it from a strictly branding perspective, regardless of the airline, one would say it's "off" and not in harmony with what should be three distinct cabins, each with their own sub-brand.

BA has done it beautifully, as have many airlines with 3-cabins.

"BusinessFirst" was a product of the 90s. As someone mentioned on this thread, the name "BusinessFirst" for a global airline in 2014, would be comparable to SQs Biz Class of today in a 2-class configuration - a true hybrid of a lie-flat (biz) and a suite (first).