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Sony spoke up about the decision not to let players change their PSN names, during an interview with IGN. Apparently it has nothing to do with technical barriers, and more to do with anonymity, which actually really makes sense. Sony Computer Entertainment America's President and CEO Shawn Layden, said during the interview:

“We don't want to make it so that you can go in, grief a bunch of people in Far Cry, change your avatar, change your username, go into CoD and grief everybody over there. We want to stop that.”

And it’s widely believed that a lot of harassment that pops up online is due to people finding comfort in anonymity, and being able to change your username often kind of provides that, in a way. It makes sense. That said, I think making people pay to change their usernames – even a small amount – would probably prevent that from happening. I don’t think Xbox Live has been obviously negatively influenced by the ability to change gamertags, but, at the same time, nobody has ever done a study on it. We simply don’t know.
- Alanah