Are items that are "A" type recognized as raw materials or finished goods in DBA?  My GL balance for both accounts are always slightly off in value compared to my inventory value listing.  Never enough to be a big concern.  During my recent attempts to cleanup my obsolete items I realized some items within the same Class are type "F" and "A".  Could this be it?

The class determines the GL account tor inventory type A.  
 
You could have a separate class and GL account for type A if you like, however, we class type A (subassembly) as the same class as FG, finished goods, so the dollar investment is combined on the general ledger.
 
If you print out the inventory report IN-F, it will provide the class assigned to your type A parts.  We use this IN-F report to reconcile our general ledger to inventory: Raw material (type R) and Finished goods (type A & F), and usually do not have much unexplainable variation.  
 
If you change classes on part numbers this would explain some general ledger variation, as the dollar investment changed from one class to another. An adjusting journal entry would need to be performed to move the dollars in the general ledger.