The customisable data files should be in XML format

[Smiley Dan]

It'd just make them a lot easier to edit, and allow third party editors to create GUIs for them a lot easier.

Furthermore it'd be a lot easier to parse and insert the data as you are programming against a common API.

The only drawback is the extra verbosity, but you could just compress the files for instance as ZIP files to get round this (like OpenOffice does).

[krusso]

Yes, if you are talking about the ability to import files into a spreadsheet, this would make the job of editing large amounts of data much faster. It now takes a lot of time to edit the txt files.

[Smiley Dan]

Not just a spreadsheet, the standardised nature of the data structure would mean customised editors could be built with relative ease.