I know it seems fascist, but following strict naming convensions is actually really helpful.  I'm not including these here to force you to follow these, but rather because it took me a while to come up with these my hope is that this may prove useful and prevent some re-inventing of the wheel.  Here are my suggestions:

• Don't use spaces, periods or slashes. For spaces use underscores, and for periods use “d” (for dot), so 7.1 is v7d1.

• For versioning use the concept of “padding” which means that the number is the same number of digits no matter what. E.g. if you have 3 digit padding then version 1 is v001. This helps with sorting are readability

• Dont use dates as versions for edits.  When you do use dates consider using YYYYMMDD format (year month day) for dates as it sorts better.  I use TextExpander to type todays date in this format at anytime.

• I like to use a 3 or 4 digit “code” for each film which helps identify and sort files associated with that film. E.G. The Informant would be “INF” etc.

• For folder names and generally as often as possible I use Initial Caps with lowercase words, and seperate areas of information with underscores.  In other words "WhoIsTheFileGoingTo_OtherInfo_BlahBlah".  This maximizes readablity (Don't use ALL CAPS), and doesn't use spaces.

• An example file name for a quicktime reference for The Informant Reel 1 edit version 7.1 might be:  INF_QTRef_R1_v7d1.mov