The problem with the theory that everyone calls her Meilin to avoid confusion with Shaoran is that in the Maze card episode, when Mizuki-sensei reunites Meilin with the others after getting lost in the maze, she calls her "Li-san" while Shaoran is there with her. I think this is just something we'll never understand about Japanese culture unless we take lots of classes or do lots of research about it or something. Anyway, Meilin is actually my favorite CCS character. Even when I was a CC dubbie, I always liked her the most. I admired her because of her devotion to Shaoran and she wasn't just devoted to having a relationship with him, either. I believe she was devoted to doing anything she could to make him happy, since she seems to follow a similar policy to Tomoyo's "As long as the person I love is happy, I'm happy" policy, expect Meilin's is "Until the day you find the person you love the most, I'll be your bride".
At first glance she seems like she's a very selfish person, but really she was always thinking only about Shaoran. Even when she came to Japan to help capture the cards, it wasn't for her own self-glory but for Shaoran. I also liked how even though Shaoran ended up dumping her for Sakura, she still liked both him and Sakura and continued to remain friends with them. In fact, I believe that after Shaoran broke up with her, Meilin ended up becoming even closer friends with Sakura and Tomoyo. She's also a really cool fighter and it makes you wonder if she could ever beat Sakura up. ^^;; I actually find that the more flaws a character has in their personality, the more I end up liking them, which may be why Meilin is my favorite CCS character. I just think she's really interesting and even though she was never in the manga, I still can't imagine what the anime would have been like without her. I was actually kind of disappointed that she wasn't in the manga.