Esoteric Question:

Can Torchlight DAT tags have their base types changed, while retaining the same in-game functionality?

For an example, changing a tag normally marked as a float, like "<FLOAT>SCALE:2", to be marked as an integer, like "<INT>SCALE:2" in the DAT file of a Unit. 

For another example, changing a "string" tag containing only numbers, like <STRING>UNIT_GUID:-1234567890123456789 to be a 64-bit "integer" instead, like so…
<INTEGER64>UNIT_GUID:-1234567890123456789
If any of these turn out to be possible, this may very well become a way to "optimize" mods for efficiency and consistency—so I would be very interested in hearing your experiences.

P.S.  Before you ask about the second example, GUIDs for non-Units are always of type "INTEGER64", but for some reason vanilla Units use the "STRING" type, instead.