Originally the plugin was designed this way, but one way or another you’re going to need a unique identifier. Name just isn’t unique. Unfortunately, with the transition over to using custom post types in WP3.0 we don’t have much(if any) control over post titles/names so theoretically you could create two reusables that share the same name, which can be a bigger problem.
I appreciate the input, this has been on my mind after having made that change in the plugin, a controllable “slug” would be what you want. Similar to the url slugs on posts.
One suggestion, if you’re working locally(with or without version control) it might be a good idea to create your reusables out on the production environment and sync the database to your development environment before you start working. That ought to cut down this issue a bit. Also, consider using dynamic sidebars, reusable region widgets, and the [reus] short tag in your theme rather than directly calling the reus() function(ie: Utilize your admin screens as much as possible, that’s really the whole point of the plugin). I made the functions available just in case, but I really don’t recommend using them if you don’t have to. It creates dependencies where your theme MUST have that plugin installed in order to work. This has always been why I like WordPress, for the most part everything works independently, and its just simple. Look at Drupal where everything depends on everything else in order to work, it can be really confusing.
