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Amazon does not universally comingle. There are many exempt product categories in addition to the seller's ability to opt in/out. If you buy a product from a specific seller which arrives with a stuck-on barcode in addition to the UPC, that product probably wasn't commingled.

(The fact that this information is so important and hidden is of course inexcusable)

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Honestly I don't care about the minutia of commingling. The past few orders I've gotten through Amazon have been counterfeit and/or used.

Is the barcode sticker a way of changing the identifier so that it specifically cannot be co-binned?

The ASIN is the product identifier, 10 characters, and it's what the buyer usually sees. Amazon would use something else behind the scenes to ensure things aren't comingled, probably FNSKU.

If the ASIN was different it wouldn't be comingled, but I don't think Amazon wants sellers all creating their own ASINs and thus new product pages when one already exists for the product.

Anybody who has used Amazon enough has witnessed when there's multiple separate listings for the same product and how annoying it is to compare.

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