I got enough of an encouraging reception on this list to have started a discussion about it at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Votes_for_deletion
There does seem to be support for renaming VfD and rewriting the VfD page notice, so I want to concentrate on that part of my proposal.
And my campaign slogan for the change is: as we currently present VfD, some newbies are feeling _bitten_ when they should really only feel _barked at._