Interesting link, thanks!

Casing with other than water happens with cigars too - not all of course. I've only heard of Padron coming right out and saying that they use only water.

The most common alteration seems to be taking the tobacco "offal" - stems and scraps - and soaking them in water, and then using the resulting mixture in casing.

It seems like there is a continuum of methods of 'helping' tobacco.

Discovery channel had a "Modern Marvels" show on tobacco a few years back that covered primarily US cigarette production, but also had bits on cigars (Opus X), pipe tobacco (Cornell and Diel <sp?>), and a little bit on chewing tobacco. Most of the show seems to be on YouTube (or there are torrents available).