HAL: the rel for an embedded collection should be singular (the item-resource-rel)

I think the implementation of the HalEmbeddedBuilder is outdated/wrong in selecting a plural collection link-rel when embedding multiple resources. In my understanding of the spec, linking to items in a collection resource (e.g. "/items") should be regarded as multiple links with the rel "item" (like multiple <a href="/items/1" rel="item">), serialized into an array. The rel should remain "item".

The collection-link-rel "items" should only be used if actually linking to the collection resource (i.e. "/items").

Otherwise it becomes impossible to distinguish between the link to a collection resource and a link to a single resource.

For example:

/items

{
  "_links": {
    "self": {href: "/items"}
  },
  "_embedded": {
    "item": [
      {
        "_links": {
          "self": {href: "/items/1"}
        }
      }
    ]
  }
}

/items/1

{
  "_links": {
    "self": {href: "/items/1"}
    "items": {href: "/items"}
  },
  "id": "1"
}

The targets for "items" and "item" are distinctly different, so they should have distinct rels.

The HAL spec itself is confusing in that regard - the published spec still holds an example using the orders-rel, but it has been corrected on Mike Kelly's website where it now shows the ea:order-rel.
It has also been discussed on the mailing list.