That's not an unreasonable answer. But I find this thread a little frustrating. As I see it, it's gone like this:
- phpinjected: Why don't I have a tool to do these non-hierarchical things?
- frongt: You already have a tool that does those specific things.
- hallettj: What could change to make that tool better suited for those non-hierarchical / tagging things?
- frongt: Don't use that tool to do tagging things. It's the wrong tool.
Why bring up hard links if people shouldn't use them for the requested use case? I mean, I do think your original reply was interesting and relevant as a starting point to get to what I think OP has in mind. But that line of thinking does require getting into how to use hard links for a non-hierarchical workflow.
I feel like OP was trying to start a discussion about what might be, if things were different. I tried to reply in the same spirit. I feel like I'm asking, "What if things were different?", and I'm being told "It doesn't work that way." Which doesn't feel like an especially helpful response to me.