> How difficult would it be to figure out what eth1 is, for example?
> 
> What if someone yanks a card out of the middle of the numbering? Wouldn't
> you still have to fixup settings?
> 
> It's the same as having sd* (for sd[0-3]) and yanking a drive out of
> the middle (say, sd1).

It's also the same in that there's the same solution: if this is going
to be a concern for the machine, wire the devices down.