[johnbender]

"A properly written application layer also prevents data loss"

Agreed but the application layer _generally_ doesn't have the abstractions at a point where it's trivially easy to put these safe guards in place like it is at the database layer.

Also, "stupid mistakes" does not in any way imply that the people who make them are stupid. Nor am I implying that you have to be particularly intelligent to normalize and constrain a database properly. I'm simply lamenting how undervalued a "good schema" can be.

[side note: upvoted your comment :D]