Cuil was also hyped a lot before its initial release. I think if it had stealth-released, done some research and refined, they might have done better.

Or at least realized the concept was something the market simply didn't want (alternatively: hasn't wanted yet).

Not true. There are bloggers out there trying to dig stuff up, and if Cuil suddenly became good, you can bet they'd love to report that story and you would've heard about it. You might've even heard about it from me, because for many months I would type stuff into Cuil just to see what I'd get.

But you never heard anything because they never did anything worth talking about (relative to the other players in the field of course...)

If it's really the case that "no publicity is better than bad publicity", they can ditch the brand and relaunch under a different name.