[all_blue_chucks]

True, but they don't need to relate 16384 types of data. It sounds like they were using one column per record, rather than one row per record. So if they had a sensible data model 2000 columns should be more than sufficient.

[threatripper]

You're on to something. The number of tables in MySQL, SQLite, and Excel are virtually unlimited. It seems like that is the lowest common divider ensuring compatibility and data integrity when case numbers grow beyond bounds.