Hello Piney,
I'm very far from being an expert in this area (I've just started to work on a QMS for our small business from scratch, and we are not even aiming at certification yet). But I was pondering the same idea all the time lately. In fact, I am seriously considering elimination of the word "quality" wherever possible. And here is why:
Our company does not seem to be a case where the concept of "quality" is in a "ghetto", so my reasons are different. The main reason to avoid this term is that ISO's definition of this concept appears to be very controversial - somewhat out of sync with what regular people perceive as "quality". As a result, all the lingo related to QMS becomes
extremely confusing for regular people.
Perhaps, the following simple example would help to convey my concern: let's take a typical fast-food restaurant and a typical upscale restaurant.
- First, I am sure that most of the people unfamiliar with ISO's definition of "quality" would easily agree with a statement that the quality of food in the former is always much lower than in the latter, and that the fast-food restaurant always produces low quality meals. However, according to ISO's definition of "quality", the situation may be exactly opposite. ISO defines "quality" as degree of conformance of a product to the requirements determined for it. So, for example, a customer who ORDERED a burger and then got a well-cooked, fresh burger just cannot complain about low quality of the service he/she just received! According to ISO the customer must have been satisfied, right?
- Now, let's take a look at the other side of the "fence"... Let's say I come to some fast-food restaurant and suggest to implement a QMS. The immediate reaction from everyone (including management) is like "No way! It is ridiculous to try to make our small restaurant compete with all those HIGH-QUALITY upscale restaurants downtown!"
I hope you get the idea...
As far as I can see, people are extremely resistant to accept ISO's definition of "quality"! In my case, I'm still struggling with explaining all this to our President, who is much more educated, smart and open-minded than most of the people I know. Explaining this to the clerks in our company appears to be a hopeless task.
So, I am also wondering what do professionals think abou adequacy of the term "quality" in ISO? Did ISO themselves manage to produce a high-quality term here?

How reasonable is the idea of dropping this term from the vocabulary wherever possible? Obviously many people do it here and there, but how common is this approach?
FWIW, the book that I am reading right now - Craig Cochran's "ISO 9000 In Plain English" - also insists on dropping the word "quality", but the author seems to have slightly different reasoning for that...
I guess, I've raised more questions than I answered. Still, this issue bothers me quite a lot, so I could not resist and jumped in.
Best regards,
Yarik.