Nice idea
In Vista and higher you could also associate the .conf extension with a batch file, which in turn calls DOSBox as appropriate. But you'd lack the edit option, again unless you edit the registry manually or use a third party tool.
What I do to avoid updating every shortcut for every DOSBox version (after I had to do it once) is selecting the installation folder manually, that is the latest version is in "\Program Files\DOSBox\" instead of "\Program Files\DOSBox-x.xx\". When I upgrade DOSBox I un-install the previous version, if I want to keep it I re-install it in its default location, then install the new version in "\Program Files\DOSBox\", and all shortcuts continue to work, with the new version. If I want to use a different version for one game I edit its shortcut and replace "\DOSBox\" with "\DOSBox-x.xx\", targeting one of the archived older versions, and that game will remain frozen in the version it uses. Honestly I haven't used an old DOSBox version in ages, although I don't play that many games.
I can understand why people like frontends. :P