Do animation files mean anything?

Just asking because all of my animation files, containing all of my animation keys, every one of them; deleted all key frames i had made. But i wondered, since its an animation file, why wasnt the file saving? Why are the keys not readable?

Are animation files just for show?

 

Could an alternative solution to the animator be;

Create physical key frame references for a straight hierarchy comparison and change, or create a list of key frame local euler and position data, and use this one instead.

Why should i recreate frames in the animation window when you cannot depend on their files saving and keeping data?


So maybe i create multiple clones of my object, with the bones positioned to key frames, and then set them inactive. While my main object references its clones hierarchies bone variables and copies them and lerps towards