> I use dots and all other allowed characters in dirs all the time.
Same here. I also have music directories with extensions like .mp3 or .flac, and source trees with extensions like .2012-01-08.
One caveat is that some non-alphanumerics such as `(%!&^=,;)' are known "poison characters" at the command line or in batch files, and require special care to be handled correctly.
> Michael was ridiculing my F9 abuse all the time; I wish he'd come
> back and let us know what he thinks about my dir abuse :-)
Technically, this would have earned you an automatic "[groan!]" by way of rule #2 in http://www.ztw3.com/forum/forum_entry.php?id=75887 ;-)
Cheers,
Liviu