The mala gamelist is generated using info from mame.info and catver.ini
After replacing both those other things, refresh the main gamelist.
At least that's the way it works when changing things in the xml.
I've never modified catver
Also keep in mind that refreshing the main all games list will not change the info stored in your other gamelists.
A game needs to be deleted from those lists and added back via Mala (not the gamelist editor) to be updated.
The only thing I find the gamelist editor useful for is creating a new gamelist with a single game in it, which I can then use to add other games to via the option while Mala is running (right click while game is highlighted).