i suspect that the logic of these devices is that they look for a counter within the first 8 characters of a name - as the counter beyond the 8 character limit doesn't list correctly. it just seems odd that they do this whilst also being able to display long file names.

Long file names are handled pretty specially on FAT partitions... an 8.3 short filename is generated for each file (with the last few chars changed to make the names unique), and a number of additional FAT filename entries marked with special attributes are created for the long/unicode name. It's all very hairy and messy.

Just try it, or at least just use it to read the contents of your USB stick

Yes, I intend to, thanks for the reply 

the media (video) player that i'm using doesn't delete the correct files. regardless of which file you try to delete within a list, the last entry in the list is deleted.

Thanks or the follow up!

Huh?!

I've not tried deleting stuff using the player.
The remote doesn't have a specific delete function. The on-player controls are minimal, and the on-screen menus don't help me a lot as the machine is hooked to an audio system with no screen attached 
I assemble stuff on my computer, rename it in the order that I want, and dump the lot to a stick - typically 80 hours or so of speech-only audio.
Once that stick has been 'used', I wipe the whole programme using my computer and construct another.

Just noticed this as a Hot Find on Gizmo's site:

What a gentleman you are!

I appreciate that, it'll save me some fidding around if it works as advertised.

Thanks again!

Yeah, I've been getting around it by using some file ops but haven't bothered to script that. This'll save me the trouble