E.g. we would have:
newthing[(), foo=1, bar=4:5] == newthing[foo=1, bar=4:5]
Right, but we also have
newthing[(2, 3), foo=1, bar=4:5] == newthing[2, 3, foo=1, bar=4:5]
which seems exactly analogous. A disambiguation scheme that worked for every n might be worth it, but one that only works for n=0 and makes that case less consistent with n>=2 doesn't seem worth it to me.