Power Pivot has replaced nearly everything I used to use Access for. Size doesn't matter, and you can use Excel like a 'real' database. Power Query does much of the...
Datomic (http://www.datomic.com)[/url] is an functional EAVT database that adds a Datalog logic query language, and separates query from storage, and well as allowing the ability to work with the database...
Datomic (http://www.datomic.com/) by Rich Hickey addresses many of your criticisims. It add Time to EAV (EAVT), so the state of the database is available as a value at any point...