If the bike has a history, there's no shame in keeping it that way. Heck, it's better than a "team edition" bike that just had stickers on it to help it sell at the LBS.

As a junior in the 90s, I rode a 1976 Olympic team bike (Schwinn Paramount) on the velodrome that had some custom painting on the top tube that said "The Rack" on it. I had no idea what it meant until I was at the junior national championships and the announcer looked at the bike and said "that was my bike!" to which he enlightened me that his nickname was "The Rack" because he was in a race that had a Blackburn bicycle rack as the prime for every lap and he took them all (I believe he suffered in the final sprint because of this). It was also fun to talk with a local rider who was a former '76 team member, as he tried to decide based on the size and fork (sprinter) which member it had belonged to.