Sorry, my comment wasn't very nice in hindsight. I must have been in a mood
Sounds like you got it though.. it basically defines the units you want that parameter to be in. Instead of g/s or KPH or whatever, they have assigned every different unit a number, so you can just use the number instead of trying to figure out how to make the unit itself work.
You can still use the [PID.mph] method for example, but for some of the ones like g/s it's easier to just use the #