XMLs provided... what about DATA files?

A number of mods require an XML to have a corresponding SIMDATA file created or modified as well. The file was provided for extracting in XML format from the new binary, but what about access to the DATA files? At least some of those were also changed with the March patch, but I can't figure out how to access them. The buffs I created pre-patch are no longer working, and it has to be something with the DATA files, because the XMLs compare fine. :(