This issue comes into play mostly in the graphical interfaces,
such as the afni GUI. The reason datasets have unique
identifiers is because the same dataset name can reside in a
different directory. The afni GUI has to handle such cases, so
datasets get the identifier.
Most programs will not care about this.
When modifying a NIFTI dataset from AFNI, it might be
safer to just throw away the AFNI extension. There are
other issues you could run into this way.
- rick