I like the comment about a solution needing to be better than the orthodox solution. Too often an alternative is adopted without baking the whole cake.

As for the dumb database, I'd hate to see us go back to dBase, or as more likely, MySQL. As a DBA I'd like to see developers use the platform, but if all they want is a data store that's ok too. I suspect over time they are going to want to use those other 'extra' features than seem frivolous in the beginning.

I blame MS for a good bit of this confusion. It's a combination of not explaining loudly enough that best practices aren't always best and not tiering their recommendations (ie, for 1-10 users do this, for 10-100 users do that, or something along those lines).

It's part our fault too. Too much dogma, too much rigidity, not enough thinking, and few DBA's have written data access code to understand the work involved. Equally it's the fault of developers, who think that any time spent on data access is wasted, when the data is arguably the only thing out of their effort that matters?

It's a subject that both intrigues, infuriates, and exasperates me! It goes back to whether we agree that the orthodox solution is the minimum requirement, and I don't think we (DBA vs Developer) agree on that at all.