Statically created thread function argument is still a text string at runtime

When I create a HWI or a Clock thread statically, i.e. in CCS using the .cfg-editor, I can provide an argument to be passed to the thread function:

for a HWI called "Argument passed to ISR function"

for a Clock called Thread Context > "Argument".

The .cfg-editor strips-off quotes and ampersands from the extered text, and nicely puts these back in the generated .cfg-file. E.g.:

/*
 * Application.Timer
 */
Clock.timerId = -1;
var clock0Params = new Clock.Params();
clock0Params.instance.name = "clock0";
clock0Params.period = 1000;
clock0Params.startFlag = true;
clock0Params.arg = "&Application0";
Program.global.clock0 = Clock.create("&Application_Timer", 10, clock0Params);

With this configuration I expect to be able to cast the UArg argument of Application_Timer() to a pointer to the type of Application0, filled with the address of Application0. This is, however, not the case, as we can see in the generated code from this confifuration:

/* Object__table__V */
ti_sysbios_knl_Clock_Object__ ti_sysbios_knl_Clock_Object__table__V[1] = {
    {/* instance#0 */
        {
            ((ti_sysbios_knl_Queue_Elem*)((void*)&ti_sysbios_knl_Clock_Module__state__V.Object_field_clockQ.elem)),  /* next */
            ((ti_sysbios_knl_Queue_Elem*)((void*)&ti_sysbios_knl_Clock_Module__state__V.Object_field_clockQ.elem)),  /* prev */
        },  /* elem */
        (xdc_UInt32)0xa,  /* timeout */
        (xdc_UInt32)0xa,  /* currTimeout */
        (xdc_UInt32)0x3e8,  /* period */
        1,  /* active */
        ((xdc_Void(*)(xdc_UArg))((xdc_Fxn)Application_Timer)),  /* fxn */
        ((xdc_UArg)((void*)"&Application0")),  /* arg */
    },
};

The argument 'arg' is a pointer to a string! Quotes and ampersand have not been removed as with the function name 'fxn'.

Is this a bug, or is this a feature?

I use CCS 5.5, xdctools_3_25_04_88, tirtos_1_20_00_28.