Strange Problem with a relationship and record picker.

Well, I know you're saying that users don't normally edit these records but you're saying when they do edit the record what appears in the field is confusing to the users. So this change would allow you to control the information that displays when the record is an edit mode. If the issue is that you actually don't want that field to be editable for normal users, you can put in a form rule that says when the user is in the Admin role, then make that field edible, otherwise it would be not edible.