why on earth did ITIL V3 rename Forward Schedule of Change to Change Schedule?

FCS vs Change Schedule

The importance of a widely distributed list of changes that includes those scheduled for the distant future, planned in the short term, and those that have recently been made cannot be understated.

What such a list is called is less important than the list itself being comprehensive, easy to access by anybody, easy to understand and relatively easy for anybody to establish the impact to themselves and their services.

What it should be called and what it is called, are two different matters, though. A poll that finds that most people call it 'fred' doesn't mean that 'fred' is the best name for it - or even if the name itself matters much.

I think that 'Change Schedule' or 'Change list' are better than 'Forward Schedule of Changes', simply because they are simpler. They also have the virtue, as has been pointed out, of apparently not meaning only changes to be made, leaving out changes that have recently been made.

I've no objection to FSC, it is, as you say, a commonly understood term in circles where this sort of thing is discussed regularly.

The advantage of replacing it with 'Change Schedule' or 'Change List', apart from clarity, is that the fad of talking about 'going forward', when you mean 'in future' is likely to be short-lived. It's the sort of jargon that catches on for a while, in the geek community, as an exclusive term - people who don't grok it, or use the standard English term, are not hip, or groovy, they're squares. Once such terms become ubiquitous so that even the dimmest manager talks about having Monday meetings 'going forward' and your waitress asks if you'd like anything more 'going forward', you know that it has lost its exclusivity and it's time to invent a new jargon word to confuse everybody.

'Going forward' is now a painful term used by anybody who hopes to use form and style rather than substance; it's the mark of the chap who is always just that little bit late for the trend. So removing the term 'Forward' from the schedule of changes shows that it is a real and important thing, not just a management fad for geek managers who are just that little bit behind the times. After all, what is more pathetic than being just a little behind the times? Being a decade, or more, out of date shows an independence, a reluctance to indulge in fads, possibly, even, it reflects more experience in the field than the callow youths, just out of Uni, who have to grasp for 'happening' terms they hope will make them seem a little bit older, as they'd grow a straggly moustache.