I definitely feel your pain here. We are in the process of overhauling our courseware to be more appropriate to the product usage. The updated version should be out the next couple months. We are also working with our reseller channel to better provide information to MEP users.
As for your situation, the workflow to solve the matter is either placing duplicate Plumbing fixtures, or using Face-Hosted Connector Families, which you place on the linked Plumbing Fixtures.
But before going down that road, are you planning to model all of your plumbing just to produce the same one-line drawings you always produce? If so, I would evaluate whether the coordination needs for those systems require modeling the entire plumbing network, or if you can use your existing drafting workflow to produce Plumbing CDs, and then model specific sections that have coordination concerns like large sloping drain piping.
Modeling an entire building it great and can be done in Revit MEP, but if this is your first project, it sounds like your firm may be biting off more than you can realistically chew, and still complete the project in the standard timeframe.
Remember, it's a road to BIM, not a street to cross.
As for the Space naming issue, like I said, using a Space Scheudle is the most productive way to accomplish this task today. The only other option would be to write an API application that does this automatically for you, which is entirely feasible (we're looking at the same thing ourselves).
Cheers,
Kyle B
Revit MEP Product Manager
Kyle Bernhardt
Director
Building Design Strategy
Autodesk, Inc.