''Picture the traditional Lufthansa logo. Now, remove the crane''
Apologies, but I'm not sure I follow. The Lufthansa logo is the crane. If you remove it, then of course it's going to look more similar to companies that don't have a crane on their logo!
I've heard previously that they yellow was dropped because the blue and yellow was associated with Ryanair. I've nothing pathological against Ryanair, but I do find it a bit disappointing that a venerable airline like Lufthansa are letting Ryanair (or Lidl for that matter) set the agenda.