Drum companies off the top of my head that I can think of that "modernized" their logos: Ludwig back in the 70's (now they use both logos interchangeably), Pearl back in the 70's went to their cursive logo. Evans I think has changed their logo 3 different times, the vintage cursive font from the 60's, the round circle logo from the 80's, and now the oval logo (I guess 4 if you count the level 360 logo). In all of those cases Pearl really hadn't been around long enough for people to care all that much. I think drum head logos be it Remo, Aquarian or Evans, used to have much smaller logos on the head than they do now a day, so the change for Evans wasn't that big of a deal. Ludwig was the more radical change, but it also coincided with them purchasing the Musser mallet percussion company so they had a combined synergy with the logo change, it looked professional, and at the time more modern than their vintage logo.
I think my biggest problem with this change is the logo just doesn't look professional and the logo overwhelms the space on the cymbal. Again also I just have to ask why? Usually when a company rebrands itself it's because they are struggling in the market. I'm not aware that Sabian had been struggling, and if they hadn't it makes it even more puzzling. Sabian has always been a company that listened to it's customers so it's shocking that they are completely tone deaf when it comes to the overwhelming negative reaction to this change.