The page builders need a lot of work.
How the columns are named is just a software glitch. Cheetah does not actually care. A column or row does not actually exist until there is a block in it and that is because (your right) columns are not actually recorded in the database. If you were for example to create new page with a bunch of columns and only add blocks to two of those columns, when you refresh the page in the page builders, the only two columns you will see are the ones that you put the blocks in.
How they are doing it is stupidly simple, but creates a bunch of problems. When the page is rendered the script uses the fields Column, Order and ColWidth. Width determines if it's a full width column. Any column that has a Width of 100 is treated as a full width column.
Simple process, fine for rendering while displaying the page, but creates problems in the page builder. One you pointed out, the names of the columns.
Another is you can't control where a new column appears when you click the add column button. Another big problem is if all you have on the page is one column that is full width, you cannot add any columns that are not full width. The slider to change the width of the columns is no longer there.
So yes, i am aware of a number of issues in the page builders that i need to deal with. And thanks for the tip on calling the full width ones rows.