It was recently said in another topic, but I just want to reiterate: we should never, ever design our data around the software that uses it. It may be inconvenient that “OMG I can’t use right now!!”, but in the long run it is much better to store data properly and have software adapt to that. I will vehemently be against any style guideline violating this principle.
I’ll be mostly off for the coming week, but if the discussion is still going when I get back, I’ll try and return and answer some of the questions/comments directed at me earlier.