I believe the same.
Don’t laugh (i did this in 3 seconds)… here is my understanding (this is oversimplified):
All config inputs (PaperUI, $OPENHAB_CONF, REST, etc) interact with the ConfigAdmin which stores data in HashMaps
Some of that data end up in the jsonDB (not all) and some other in Userdata
for example:
/var/lib/openhab2/config/org/openhab/addons.config contains the parameters that we set in /etc/openhab2/services/addons.cfg (this file is parsed, and entered in ConfigAdmin with config pid: org.openhab.addons)
I would also like to have everything being dumped from the OSGi ConfigAdmin into jsonDB 
Of course, it is much more complicated than I described above (with Managed Items, etc) and I am reading more on the topic. There are many nice resources out there: example: Apache Karaf Container 4.x - Documentation