The purpose of this proposal seems to be to allow the rolls to better
reveal their chronological numbering scheme.

Working with databases quite a bit, I cringe a little at dropping a
piece of original information.  At least in the context of a database,
I would parse (split) the last number into it's own field.  Then you
could sort in chronological order (as well as the numbering scheme
allows) but you could reassemble the full number as needed through
a query.  This way you could also sort by approximate roll length if
you wished to and still keep all of the original number information.

My concern with dropping the number from any future references would
be the confusion it would cause by those who are "in" on the scheme
and those that aren't.  If I switched to such a scheme in my business,
I would have a ton of customers wondering what I was referring to when
I listed that Rachmaninoff roll as 7030 versus 70301.  It wouldn't be
worth the extra mail.

My two cents anyway.

Paul Johnson
Proprietor, The Piano Roll Shop
www.pianorollshop.com