OK, unfortunately it isn't acceptable to require the user to configure int values like this. But... what about this idea?
Basically you're looking for approximately 32 bits of uniqueness right? Well a node name is based on host name, which is ultimately based off of DNS labels. A DNS label can contain one of 26 letters, one of 10 digits, a "-", or a "." (but cannot start or end in "-" or "."). This means that a single character has only 38 possible values, which means you can fit about 6 of them into 32 bits, if you squeeze really hard.
Perhaps we can set it up so that we have just a couple more bits - maybe 42, which would be just enough for 8 characters - and default it to the compressed node name, and if the node name is greater than 8 characters we can print a warning and suggest that the user choose a unique 8-character name?