If S&W could be faulted for it's number convention it also relates to it's sale and introduction of new ownership. Arcane numbering is it's own attraction, tho, as those who become fans of the product line like to spout them and others in the know get the references. Including those which were never actually made and you see that "model" used to out the unknowledgeable.
Still, there is a trend to tack on word after word now, which in marketing seems to express more to the buyer than adding on another suffix. We "get it" when reading about the new M4A2 or -3, but the public new to guns doesn't, and THAT is the market being targeted as it is expanding exponentially. So it's not wrong - in Marketing's view - to label something the Tactical Carbine Short Enhanced Ambidextrous Close Combat Trunk Carry. Explains what it does.
Not really much different than what a "Mare's Leg" was meant for in it's day. We just changed the perspective to match the modern use. Since we are no longer using the Old West as a marketing vehicle - how many cowboy action story lines are used on TV now? - we use military and LEO which dominates the 18-35 targeted market.
Goes to broadcast coming up with a new series, "Navy SEALS." Even NCIS is getting old. And "Walker, Texas Ranger" slipped into reruns on free side channels saturated with health care lawsuits. So, yeah, the gun makers are focusing on the CURRENT buying market with the newer names. After all, a look down the firing line at the local range on a busy weekend does reveal that. Most posters here avoid that day, after all, when "every day is Saturday" it's the one day you don't pick to go shoot. And you see a lot of older more traditional guns during the week.
Times are changing and so are the names of guns. It's also focused on those afternoon gamers who grew up with virtual shooting galleries, and they are a significant buyer market in the near future. Whether we like it or not.
We might not all have picked up Kahr's somewhat arbitrary numbering conventions but I can't say I dislike them. Think what they would be with "names" tacked on one after the other. I can say it does lend a more "professional" tinge to their product line, most of the older ones seem to do that. SIG didn't get hurt by it and Glock is hip deep in an simple numbering scheme seemingly based on chronological introduction regardless of caliber or features.
So it goes, the shorter and more numerical the naming convention, the more "official" the product line and who its offered to. The other hand, the more nouns are used, the more recreational the marketing emphasis. I see that in watches to some degree, too.