I intend to look at item matching, by and by. I discussed it, somewhere - being able to filter on type of item and look only in specific locations, and so on. The plan was to make all CLI commands use this so that "eat" or "equip" or whatever would only look at items of the right type - and would fail if the string was ambiguous within that type, rather than using the first one, whatever that is.
Now, the problem with duplicate item names is that we have a single list of item names generated from the "key set" of all items. Sets being what they are, there are no duplicates. Recognizing that the same name (fuzzy or exact) can refer to multiple items is a substantial project - several days, as Darzil said. Having done so, it would not be THAT hard to pick the quest item that corresponds to the path you are on.
Question: at Level 11, Ed's staff is disassembled into "new" components. As he visits the guardians who failed at their One Job and gives them back the components, are they removed from inventory? If not, when you return the Macguffin, are they then removed from inventory, much as other Ed-only quest items? If not, do they continue to be the "new" items, are do they magically change into the non-Ed versions?
I'll look more at this, eventually, but not soon.