Ah, the int16 array. How... quaint.There are many types created since LV 8.0 that cannot be represented in the int16 array, and even some older types aren't guaranteed to be represented correctly under various conditions (enum, for example, if there are too many characters in the total concatenated list of strings).
The variant type library in vi.lib is the type library of LabVIEW. The Int16 array is no longer maintained for new types, and hasn't been for years. Yes, it still works on many, even most, types, but it isn't what I would suggest you use, certainly not in the long run.