Thanks John. I did indeed get the sense that it was designed this way. It would be interesting to hear what others think, but, after bouncing it off one of our users here, this is how I think the design should work:

When the user selects a non-preferred name, a warning should pop stating something along the lines of "You have selected a non-preferred taxon name. The preferred name for [taxon user entered] is [the preferred name]. Would you like to change the name you entered to the preferred name?" Or something along those lines. Then I think the actual name that was entered should be displayed in the hierarchy. Having said this, it's still very useful being able to browse with preferred names visible, so perhaps an option in the same vein as the display common names option might be an idea; i.e. the user could choose whether to have preferred names visible or the actual name entered visible.

Charles