Hir Argon,
Flycast 2.6 is released, maybe, if you will have some spare time, you could update DS. Many thanks!
thanks, just added it to v17.2 update on github
Ahhhh. I have several GUN4IR lightguns that have the same PIDs because its firmware only supports up to 4 unique available values. I haven't upgraded to the latest Demulshooter, but if I do and happen to use the two guns with the same PID then that is another scenario where this come up
. Just another call out if you need more reasons to revert it 
I use a tool that sets the DS config for me prior to launching a game, so I suppose it wouldn't be an issue for me personally if DS still supports the fully qualified paths when it's manually set.
Edit: I don't have a github account to respond in that thread, but maybe a fix could be to use devices if their full ID is found, and then for any device which isn't found, you'd try searching using the short path? Saving would still use the full path, and then portability will work using the fallback search logic? No need to continue that conversation here, but is just another thought. That may only work when running games though versus configuring in the UI.
Be assured that I did not need any more reason to revert it.....mostly the over way around : I was sent a lot of debug data before accepting the change, hoping this would not be kind of safe, but it wasn't
So I just changed it back to the old way in the v17.2 update
Starting to run some advanced looking functions, mixing both short and long names according to the computer is the best way to mess with a lot of things.
I'd rather keep a clear, unique way which has the advantage of giving clear information when things are not working.
Stability and compatibility if way more important to me than easy portability or other special-setup specific changes.