On the thief ant issue I agree with you, I think ESA erred by applying an almost genus level common name to a single hard to identify species and we should not repeat the error.
Put simply my thoughts on Monomorium are that “little black ant” created an unusual amount of misidentifications, but this was also a very widely used common name to the point that it also creates confusion to not use the common name, but that the common name should be applied to the whole species group not one species
My concern with Lasius claviger is that a common name that is actually in use for this species has been replaced with a common name that is not actually used, I think this causes confusion, and the misidentification issue with “little black ant” was unique and is not a reason to change any names of any other species
EDIT: sorry i’m new to the forum, and didn’t realize I was supposed to combine my replies into one