You would think that SharePoint would not let you do that without
having to put in the serial code, due to the pain to change  it
back. You actually will have to go and manipulate 1 field in the
SQLServer to change it back globaly.

I've never tried this, but I think you could pull the original field definition
from the fieldswss.xml in the 12.0\TEMPLATES\FEATURES\fields folder and throw
that into your own custom feature to fix it.

You could probably just reactivate the "fields" feature, but building your own
feature that only affects the Title column  might be the safer route in case
you've modified any of the other out of the box fields (not recommended). Don't
forget to include all the versions of the Title column (Title, LinkTitle,
LinkTitleNoMenu).

I like this solution you say I can change  it in one place?

Could you give me a hint where to start. This is a production system
too, so I'm probably going to need to practice it a couple of times
somewhere else before I trust myself to do that.

You will change  it just once. It will affect only new lists or
those that have content  maangement turned on. If you have created a
basic task list, you will manually go to that list to rename it.

In our MOSS environment, we found it in the 'ContentTypes' table,
definition is the field where it is renamed. Ours was in there as
the renamed version.

Here is the sql statement we used in changing the field.

UPDATE [PaceNet_Main].[dbo].[ContentTypes]
SET Definition = '<Field ID="{fa564e0f-0c70-4ab9-b863-0177e6ddd247}"
Name="Title" SourceID="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/v3"
StaticName="Title" Group="_Hidden" Type="Text" DisplayName="Title"
Required="TRUE" FromBaseType="TRUE" MaxLength="255"
Version="3"><Default></Default></Field>'
WHERE ContentTypeId = 0x0485CEA0C9BD894FAF24336B33C9F1DA

It would be good to know, from anyone who actually knows, whether
this a really bad way to solve this problem.

This IS a really bad way to solve this problem. Changing the database
directly could get you the equivalent of fired. Even reading data from
the SQL tables directly is forbidden by Microsoft:
blogs.msdn.com/.../404802.aspx

I'll take it this would also be the answer to my previous post of
wanting to delete list instances from dbo.AllLists.

I suppose if you want to do any of this you should really do it
programatically using the SharePoint Object model.

I found this solution in my virtual travels (the only kind of travel
I can afford):
sharepoint.microsoft.com/.../Post.as
px?ID=15

"Customer will have to create a console application project, once the
project is created copy the code to the new project, and then compile
the project."

I renamed the title  property within a list accidently as well, which
ultimately renamed the Title for all 'Item' content  types within the
site collection.
I was not about to modify SQL directly, but did find and use the code
here to rename the property back to 'Title':
sharepoint.microsoft.com/.../Post.as
px?ID=15

This seemed to work fine, until I realized children content types
of 'Item' that use the 'Title' property were overwritten as well. So
contacts now have a Display Name of `Title' instead of 'Last Name'.
When viewing the Column Settings on the 'Contacts' content type  at
the list level and site level, the property seems fine (displays as
Last Name with internal name Title). This would make me believe new
contact lists would be created correctly, however they are not. When
creating a new contact list and item, Title appears in the view and
new form. In testing, I stumbled upon how to get it to the point
where new lists are created so that the view has Title, yet the new
form has Last Name. So getting close but no cigar.

I've tried updating the children directly using object model and gui,
but no luck.
Has anyone else seen this and found a supported way to correct this
mess?

I think I will live with letting this one site use the name "ItemTitle"
and just remember never to do that again

Also, You have a "WHERE ContentTypeID" clause in that statement. My
problem deals globally with Site Columns, not a column  for a particular
content type. Are you sure this would accomplish the same thing?