New Fixed Length (user defined length) Char Primitive Data Type

While I suspect this may have been brought up before, since I'm new here and couldn't find any reference to it in the Issues, I'll suggest it.

Strings are great if you need an immutable variable length char data type... but they are not at all great when you want a mutable Fixed Length Char (FLC) variable. Besides being useful in their own right, a FLC would also allow Structures to be defined that have data in SPECIFIC well defined places.

It would also allow a natural VB.net implementation of Structures with overlapping data fields (Unions) which doesn't work with strings. Likewise with arrays of FLC's... You could overlay arrays of different element sizes, or overlay an array on a structure and do a lot of things that are nearly impossible to do now.

SQL has a user defined fixed length char type. Why shouldn't VB?