Maya allows duplicate dag paths?

nope, in the MA file it has explicit called to createNode with those names. So the createNode(‘transform’) one tries to give an invalid name which maya aptly renames accordingly. Then theres a call to createNode that create the shape and parents to the bad node name. I think maya flips out and creates a transform with the name, UNKOWN_REF_NODE, then parents the orphan under it.