The reason I feel we need this functionality probably comes from the
fact that in Planview, all lists are managed centrally, as it makes it
much easier to maintain and manage, particularly if the lists are used
over and over.

Anyways, I understand that companies have multiple product lines that
use different version schemes and components, however, even those
products, I'm assuming, may have more than one project associated to
them, so it makes sense for each product to have a centrally managed
version and component list. Why, you ask? Here's at least two reasons.

1. Because otherwise you are risking inconsistency in the way different
people enter the version and component list, which means your reports
will be off.
2. Also, you are adding extra unnecessary effort to creating a project
if everytime you create one you have to add a version and component
list. That is time people don't want to spend.

I see several options for these two lists:

1. Create one master list for all components and one master list for all
versions, regardless of product. The user creating the project will need
to know what versions and components go with what product. Not the
optimum solution, but certainly the easiest to implement.

2. Allow lists to be hierarchical. Planview works off of unlimited
hierarchically structured lists. This will still allow for one master
list that can have versions and components separated heirarchically -
top node is 'Version', second level is 'Product', third level is the
version or component (depending on list) for that product.

3. Allow for creation of multiple lists. Seems redundant. One master
list that is heirarchical, to me, would be the best answer. You can even
go so far as to provide a way to only show a certain part of the list
based on the product you are creating the project for. We have this
ability in Planview, where, based on the selection of a value in one
lists, values in another list become selectable. In this way, you can
manage all of the same thing in one list, but narrow the end user
picklist to the appropriate values.