Why doesn't (#i) work together in "a(#i)" and "[a](#i)"

["Nikolai Weibull" <now@xxxxxxxx>]

$ touch A a
$ rm a(#i)
$ ls
A
$

And the same goes for

$ rm [a](#i)

I figured that perhaps for the first one there's really no filename
generation going on, as it actually names an existing file, but for
the second case I was in pattern-thinking mode and figured that that
would make the modifier work.  It doesn't.

Explanation?

Thanks.

 nikolai