Thought I'd give my penny's worth on the subject.
As my work is based in South America, specifically Chile, we do not have such standardized measures in our local industry, nonetheless I do agree that as BIM kicks in worldwide, this tendency will no doubt change.
We do have a system for class definition which is based both on, the actual building procedure (from the ground up)and construction type ... defined by the materials that are specific to each part of this process. (Wall, slab, divisions, ceiling, roofing MEP, etc..)
We've found that as clients have become more involved in design decisions, due to a myriad of softwares, that allows them to 'navigate' our designs ...materials and how they are applied, often suffer many changes in the design process and have become the essential discussion points in any conversation
This has made for class organization to become based on texture denominations in first place ...( rather than have a technical appendix as its prime definition, which sometimes becomes hard to find when navigating the endless list of possibilities).
We've defined a basic scheme where we congregate Graphic type classes (annotation and measures), and building based definitions starting from, contextual classes assigned to the environment the project will be set in, site classes based on the actual plot the project is embedded (mainly landscape orientated) and then the construction set, such as; foundation, structural and finally .... visual (material) based component classes.
These last ones, are basically always applied through the components of each structural shape used in the model. Generally applied through wall, roof, slab styles aswell.
This allows for easy change of the appearance of a given part of the project just modifying the model style in question.
This allows us to present the clients with options easily (and quickly), which allows for the project to advance in a expedited manner.
We've found that numeric definitions are hard to understand or foresee (by new comers to the office), have a steep learning curve, whilst material based denominations are easier to find.
It also allows for new materials in the industry to be integrated quickly to the work process.
(Well maybe that's my ... two cents worth ...)
Great discussion and food for thought, though, well done.