As I'm sure you read, I am a Roleplayer. So having 8 character slots and having more than one character does serve a purpose to me. =) It's not about getting rich, hell it's not even about having 'specialised' characters.

Having said all that, sitting on 20 names for no reason other than holding them hostage is a bit... jerkish? I only ever take names I want and will use. I am what you might call an Alt-oholic, whereby I always have one or two character slots free all the time so I can spontaneously make characters. Some of them have names that others might want, so if I don't play them I wind up deleting them a month or so later. I don't sit on names or alts just for the sake of having them. I do actually USE and play my alts. So a name-change feature would be useful. I can also see it being useful for people moving to the unofficial Roleplay realms who may then want to change their name after considering giving RP a try.