Want to rename a Virtual Server on a F5 LTM

I think your approach should work. However, manually editing and reloading configuration files is generally not recommended and might lead to other problems such as this one (although the version in use at your site is not affected by this specific bug).

If you are running an HA environment, you could alternatively think about doing all the changes on the standby unit (auto sync being disabled) and then sync config to the active one, thus minimizing the amount of time for the change to happen on the active side.