> multiple softlists attached to the console with a common shortname could trigger the > wrong game being loaded (the first softlist added is being used)
Sure, and in that 0.01% of cases where 1) the situation occurs and 2) the game that loads isn't the one the user wanted they can get more explicit.
> for home computer it is even trickier: some multidisk games require all drives to be > filled to work, some other games require only a specific disk to be loaded at boot > and others to be loaded later when prompted.
That's not something the media switch can easily solve anyway (I'm aware you mean using it to manually mount each disk, but at that point you've completely destroyed any pretense of MESS being usable by non-developers). But adding a "disk1only=yes" property to the softlists would enable everyone to fix that problem where it exists.