Not necessarily. It depends on how often the new files are committed to the repo. If the files are edited several times before a commit, then you're precisely where you are now. The biggest benefit is if the file becomes corrupted.
You can version any file; this is how Time Machine in Mac OS X Leopard works, for example, and there is an interesting article by someone who committed his entire computing environment into CVS and then just maintained working copies on his home and work machines.
But "better" and "easier" are specific to your situation, and I'm not sure I completely understand your problem as things stand.
