I worked on the gcc back-end for TAOS. One requirement was a special output format called a "tool" which was like a single subroutine shared library. It was specified with the standard "-f" gcc extension syntax: "-ftaos-tool".

I heard about the name change to "Elate" second hand. "taos" had to change to "elate" everywhere -- even the options.

The naming may or may not have sucked, but it definitely did blow having to tell the compiler to "-felate-tool".