> IMHO, I think it's okay to have a hexadecimal number as flags in the > PCB file.
The problem is, we want to increase the number of layers. We need to have more flags to do that, and they don't fit into a single 32 bit hex number any more (we're already overloading flag bits between object types). So, moving from hex flags to symbolic flags gives us the freedom to redesign how we manage that information internally, without worrying about file incompatibilities or limits.
