> It would be very nice to be able to swap a failing ethernet card with
> a replacement with a different chipset without having to edit several
> files in /etc.

To the extent that that's the case, it's a reason not to scatter your
configuration information among several files in /etc rather than
keeping it all in one place.

> Ideally, you could swap out an ethernet card in a box with multiple
> cards and not have it's[sic] number change,

You've already got this, if you replace it with another card using the
same driver and at the same address (whatever "address" means for the
bus in question - slot number for PCI, for example).

Beyond that, ISTM what you want is a more robust naming scheme from
ground zero; why should devices be named with
<driver-prefix><small-integer> pairs?

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