This reminds me of PG's article about schlep (http://www.paulgraham.com/schlep.html) and suggests a startup opportunity: If you can streamline the process of managing an investment in a poorly-performing company and/or shutting a company down when it fails completely, there's probably lots of VCs who would love to hand over their stock cheap, just to get rid of the headaches so they can focus on the investments they want to focus on.
YC has proven that startup incubators can be phenomenally effective... who wants to launch the first startup hospice?
I would absolutely love to do this. But it's going to be very difficult - toeing a line between trading while insolvent, keeping suppliers on board, and trying to recapitalise an unproven business. There are plenty of distressed investors / turnaround funds out there - they tend to focus on established businesses and even then often struggle to achieve a positive outcome.
However, I do think there is scope for a sort of holding pool for products that are acquihired and then shut down. Eg. Posterous would be a good candidate. Let the staff go to their new homes, but build a team whose specialist skillset is in taking an already built product, putting it into stasis and dropping ongoing costs, and then monetising that existing tech/content/audience/userbase. Perhaps in the hope that some later startup can use the existing product to build-off in return for equity.
YC has proven that startup incubators can be phenomenally effective... who wants to launch the first startup hospice?