Long ago, I worked (as a client) with a software which use a centralized table for it's codified element. Here, as far as I remember, how the table look like :

Table_Name (PK)
Field_Name (PK)
Code (PK)
Sort_Order
Description

So, instead of creating a table every time they need a codified field, they where just adding row in this table with the new Table_Name and Field_Name.

I'm sometime tempted to use this pattern in some database I design, but I have resisted to this as from now, I think there's something wrong with this, but I cannot put the finger on it.

It is just because you land with some of the structure logic within the Data or something else?