I think block producer is a better name than witness, so when discussing the concept in a generic sense (as opposed to one where the duties are specific to block producers on Hive, such as voting for HBD interest rates, block size, etc) I prefer it over witness. Of course, DanL is the guy who came up with the term "witness" to start with, so I don't think use of either term is "sucking up" exactly.

If I had to make a guess, block producer at EOS was probably coined by someone who felt that the previous term "witness" was obscure and vaguely threatening, same as me.