Yes. Using a safe-CURIE wouldn't have prevented that, but at least it wouldn't break URIs in rel values.
Wait, you can't use URIs as rel values, because "next" is just as valid a URI as "http://www.w3.org/foo";. You would have to have a 'safe uri' format such as "<next>" and "<http://www.w3.org/foo>" to make it possible to interpret a rel directly as a URI.
Steven
