Interesting, I didn't know that editing a list  item ate up ID numbers.
I'm going to have to check that out. If it does, I don't know of any
easy solution to this problem.

I just tried this on an Event list  and I was unable to recreate the
problem. I'm not familiar with a "Change Request List", how did you
create it. Did you use WSS or SPS? If WSS, was it a Team Site or a
Meeting Workspace? Or is it perhaps a component of MPS?

I've noticed that this occurs in an Issues list. If you "update" the
item in an Issues list  with an ID of 1, then it actually creates a
second item in the list with an ID of 2 (or whatever the next available
number is). It does this so that the list can track the issue history.
You may notice that if you change  the issue several times, the issue
history will reflect all of these changes, pulling the data from all
previous instances of the issue.

The views for the Issues list are defined to only show the "current"
ones. The "current" ones are basically any items that have not been
updated.

I haven't seen this with any of the other list templates besides the
issues list.

This is true. We're experiencing the same issue with our issues
list. What you've described makes sense. However, it is not a
solution to our problem. Do you know if / how to create  a unique  id
for individual records?

I had never noticed the ID change  but Bens description seems reasonable.
If you absolutely need the ID to stay static, can you create  your list
using something other than the Issues list  as the base. Or are you using
the Issue list's special built-in notification and graphical reporting
capabilities?