Solved! Go to Solution.
<id>2</id>
I am still confused as to why ArcMap Identify can read the layer name from the published serviceThis is because ArcMap would use SOAP communiction and all the WebAPIs use REST.
<layer> <useproxy>true</useproxy> <name>3/27/13 - reduced vegetation supression - AA11</name> <id>2</id> <url>https://someserver/arcgis/rest/services/someservice/MapServer</url> <fields> <field name="Red" alias="Red"/> <field name="Green" alias="Green"/> <field name="Blue" alias="Blue"/> <field name="Contrast" alias="Contrast"/> <field name="Materialid" alias="Material Id"/> <field name="Count" alias="Count"/> <field name="Opacity" alias="Opacity"/> <field name="Pixel Value" alias="Pixel Value"/> <field name="OID" alias="Object Id"/> </fields> <links/> <zoomscale>2000</zoomscale> <forcescale>true</forcescale> </layer>