Yes it's possible & I am using # 10, 20, 30...... as postion numbers & it's working fine for me. I got around 1200 manufactures & I am using them as an auhors for my web store.
But the one bug is that we don't have facility to set "manufactures per page" so the page shows all manufactures in one page. 
__________________
X-Cart: 4.7.7 LIVE
Skin:Ultra by xcartmods.co.uk
X-cart Modules: | ACR, Rich Google Search, Customer Testimonials | Cloud Search, | Websitecm: CDSEO (2.1.9)
---------------
Server: Linux
php: 5.3
mysql: 5.0.89
----------------
|