The whole point of having a system is to NOT have 'dozens of variants', because there is a system that people are expected to stick to.
The problem is, the mods haven't actually clarified what the system is, so people keep making dozens of variants.
The current format of the character tags is not good for reasons mentioned above, but it's completely straightforward - character: ///. The categorized format, if used by people, also cuts down on the creation of variants by making it a LOT easier to check if there's already a tag. Having separate Character and Creator also makes it possible to keep use of creators as characters (especially when done by different creators) from their work as creators.