I always rename artists so that they're all the same.

For instance, if I had any John Cougar Mellencamp on my player (I don't), I would tag every track with the artist "John Cougar Mellencamp", even if it was a John Cougar album or a John Mellencamp album.

On my player, I have albums by "Steve Morse", and "The Steve Morse Band". They all get tagged with "Steve Morse". Likewise for "Pat Metheny" and "Pat Metheny Group".

To be honest, I see this as a logical extension of typo-fixing CDDB entries. For instance, CDDB query might result in the artist name "REM", whereas a query on the next album might result in "R.E.M.". Or perhaps it's a "The" title, such as "The B-52's" as opposed to just "B-52's". I just always standardize artist names, regardless of whether it's poor CDDB entries, or an artist whose name changes.