[gafitz]

I'm not sure if I'm the slowest learner on the planet or just quirky but I have never been able to find a way in this or any of the earlier versions of calibre to manage file names in a way that I can use.
My files are all named "Author Last Name, First Name - Book Title". When I import books calibre treats the data to the left of the hyphen as the Book Title and to the right of the hyphen as the Author. Have looked everywhere to see where I can configure calibre to switch the input template but no luck. S when I try to import three books by the same author, calibre warns me that there are three books with the same title!!?? I then need to change the author name and book title in the Metadata to correct it; ok for one title painful for a batch!
After a conversion the file is saved in the same name format; "Book Tile - Author First Name Last Name. I have over 1800 titles that are named in my format. I like it this way as all my books are sorted by author and then by title and I have no intention of changing this system. I have used ebooks since I bought the first Sony when it was first released and since then have used 3 or 4 Sony variants, a couple of pocketbooks and an iRex. In all cases I can find my books easily by my naming convention, since I'm more interested in authors than titles. I know that I can build series or tags in metadata but that presumes that the only library that I will ever use is calibre and/or that my device will respect these tags.
Surely there is a way for calibre to work for me and not me for calibre. I think that Kovid has done a fantastic job in committing himself to calibre over many years and building a wonderful program but, as I have had to do, with each of the versions that I have tried, I reluctantly walk away since the program does not answer my needs.
Am I wrong and is there a way to configure input and output file names without python prgramming or am I going to have to walk away yet again?
Sorry for the verbose posting but any help appreciated.