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  1. What are the potential problems related to using the deprecated "object" variable type? (that is, beyond the type suddenly disappearing in later releases)  (BW) I don't know of any potential problems that you may face with the "object" type.  Due to the generic nature of Object and compatibility issues we may face its also unlikely that it will disappear in the future.  For general programming practice its better and clearer to use a more specific type than "object" since it provides a higher level of clarity.   I think in this case the deprecation is used to discourage usage in favor of more specific types since we are passing objects around and a non specific type like object provides no clarity for the engine or the user.
  2. Is there any plan to reintroduce a generic variable type if the current "object" will not be preserved?  (BW)  I think that it depends on the purpose of the types you are using and whether a generic type can fulfill that need.  Introducing object when and if it is taken away will likely need to be necessary if we made that choice.
  3. Is it mandatory to define custom components that only use LC types or declared custom classes as input/output types? (if yes, I'll then add this to the long description of a bug I'm going to add in Watson)  (BW)  I don't think I really understand the question.  A custom component has methods which have input and output types.  Even if those types are "objects" the container needs to be aware of the type so that it can pass it into and out of the methods.  I don't really see that the bug would be in this case since its important to conform to the confines of what the container can handle.  BTW,  if your logging an issue it I would not log multiple items in one bug if that is what you mean by a long description.  Also if its an issue you are facing for a customer I think its needs to be logged as a support case so that it can be delivered and managed properly.

We also have the binary type, which is under the covers a byte[] defined as part of the system component.xml.  This isn’t a standard datatype but if you search for binary you can find it and use it in Workbench.  
 
Here is the mention of it in the online docs if you search for binary.
 
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/livecycle/9.0/workbenchHelp/help.htm?content=000463.html