The project name is the identity via which the project is addressed ...

That statement is incorrect. The name of the project is not an identity. as the javadoc of project.name states:

p>Returns the name of this project. The project's name is not necessarily unique within a project hierarchy. You
* should use the {@link #getPath()} method for a unique identifier for the project.

As mentioned by my work account in #108: I have a lot of projects that have the same name, but not the same path. I guess i have also no clue why I have not been affected by gradle/gradle#847 in the slightest, for me multiple projects with the same name work just fine.

So currently i would not use the settings syntax because it would cause the ApplyPluginsAction to run on unintended projects, because they have the same name as intended projects. (But different paths)