I certainly know the implications of allowing people access to editing settings (like the one you mention), but that is irrelevant to the problem I want to solve (that is, store complex data structures in MySQL in a way that is easy to edit the settings stored), that's why I haven't mentioned those issues.

I also know that this solution is not optimal (I already discussed this several times with my boss), but it is THE solution my boss wants and he is the one that pays me, so I do what he says :)