> Of course, there's no good way to add this type of configuration
> information to config files, but that's more a bug than a feature.
> (e.g. you can't say "i want this unit to correspond to this MAC
> address," etc.)  If people are interested in solving it, i'd love to
> see proposals...

Standard computer-science trick.  Add a layer of indirection.
[Wow, I finally get to use that line. :) ]

If you want something with Mac ID xyz to be foo3 but the system might 
set it up as foo4, set your code up to use baz3 and add a layer between 
baz* and foo* that does the appropriate mapping.