I notice that in the changes for the newest boost that "named vertexes" is now supported in adjacency_list. I can't find anything on this feature though. I have the book, have searched the web. Only thing I find is comments in adjacency_list.hpp that maybe refers to a NamedGraph concept? I don't see that in the docs either:

http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_39_0/libs/graph/doc/table_of_contents.html

Could someone give me an overview of what this feature is and why I might use it? Probably better...point me to some place that documents it?

It's not a documented feature, and as far as I can tell, they only work with adjacency lists. You may be able to deduce from libs/graph/test/named_vertices/test.cpp how they work.