Update!
I increased my number of position variables and base variables and I was able to copy over the VAR.DAT file without any issues. I copied the values from my backup to the new VAR.DAT file in the same positions (line numbers) that they were in, and the processor seemed to like it.
Now...for the VARNAME.DAT file, well that was interesting (but all my fault)!
I think it would have been just fine using the same exact method as I did for the VAR.DAT file except for one thing.
My code was written with variable names that had spaces in them prior to turning on Aliasing. This means that the job files had many instances of "illegal" names and also that some of the names that I was putting back in the controller using the VARNAME.DAT file were also illegal. I thought that I could find/replace my variable names, fix them with no spaces and things may be good. Yes, it was for the variable names in the VARNAME.DAT file but my jobs would not load until I fixed all of them by removing the spaces in the variable names and referencing the correct names in the VARNAME.DAT file.
This may sound like a lot but it really was only about 40 minutes.
Takeaways - Don't turn on Aliasing after you have written code with variable names that have spaces in them!
- Copying over a VAR.DAT and VARNAME.DAT file after reallocating variable memory structure should be just fine
Thanks for the input!