A problem here is that Brandie has set out to describe in this article how NOT to design a database but unfortunately some people will miss the significance of that last paragraph (as I did first time around). People may think that Brandie believes he is giving some sound, good advice. That explains the criticisms already posted here and perhaps there are more to come.

The past record of featured articles on this site is not a happy one, so I'm not at all surprised if people jump to the wrong conclusions and think that this is just another article confirming their low expectations. For that reason I think it would have been more prudent to structure the article differently, i.e. say more about good practice instead of giving an example of poor practice.