Hi,
The flexichain .asd file includes an almost-useless package: there are
no persistent definitions other than the system itself, so (since asdf
arranges for the file to be loaded in a temporary package which uses
the ASDF package) there's no need to define and use a -system package.
(Packages are surprisingly heavyweight objects, which is why I'm
drawing this to your attention).
There's one way in which having a package definition can be useful --
for incremental development of the .asd file itself. However, you can
achieve that, if this is one of your goals, with an explicit asdf:
prefix to the defsystem symbol.
Cheers,
Christophe
[ PS: I'm not subscribed to this list, so Cc me if you want more
discussion on this point. ]