Thanks for your feedback. Understand your concern and suggestion.
All language files are in "coded" php in mambo/joomla...
CB allows you to have your own "english" CB plugin, overriding "default_language", or any other language plugin.
PHP is certainly not the best UI to edit text, I agree
. However there are hundreds of messages, and using joomla content table for that would be inefficient performance-wise.
We started implementing a new language system, which will go into your easy customization direction for CB 2.0, but will not use joomla content, as one of our core principles is to not (mis)use or touch the CMS tables structure.