No, IEs have nothing whatsoever to do with anything that we knew before. They are a new asset that Asobo introduced with SU13, but at the moment they are only available in AAO when you set MSFS to developer mode (that is an official bug that Asobo is working on).
IEs are supposed to end this struggle with the Behaviors, as at least HVars and BVars are apparently related or even derived from the InputEvents.
LVars are a different matter, as normally they shouldn’t be used like this. Their main purpose is animation control and data transfer between internal modules. It is entirely possible to move a lever in the cockpit through LVars while the actual aircraft system remains unaffected (like with the PMDG aircraft).