the problem in the real name policy, to me, is more related to the fact that they want your ID name while they claim to need the name you go by usually.
Would google accept _why as a name for a user? Probably not unless this _why is a well known guy. But what if you are not well known, but your friends call you that way? To me they should accept it based on their terms...
What concerns me about RN policies is the immoderacy with which they're often pursued, not the idea itself. It's actually (gasp!) a good idea at root. I have no problem with allowing pseudonyms and role accounts-- I think G+ and Facebook should-- but Google is right not to want profiles with names like Fuckhead89 and MiKeY ~:~ j0n3S on the service.
Giving less leniency (in terms of the decision whether to can spammers) to non-real-name accounts makes sense. Stopping impersonation is obviously the right thing to do. Preemptively treating accounts as negative-value accounts simply because they look* pseudonymous is the wrong thing to do.
What I think needed to be said in the boardroom conversations is that the damage done by deleting a good (even pseudonymous) profile is about 100 times that done by allowing a bad profile. Bad profiles (spammers, trolls) will ruin a site, but they're only dangerous if numerous enough to establish a critical mass. The cost of ripping out a good, potentially pseudonymous profile, is a nasty blog post that makes the rounds on the internet.
Would google accept _why as a name for a user? Probably not unless this _why is a well known guy. But what if you are not well known, but your friends call you that way? To me they should accept it based on their terms...
P.S. I like/use google plus