I subscribe to Jason Haley's blog and there was an interesting blog reference today on "Transactional" Database Structures. I have to admit I have never worked on a database that has required this kind of design before and I found myself intrigued by the concept, I like the simplicity and complexity of it.
He is referencing an architecture that uses purely inserts and no updates along with a checksum to show whether or not a client is active or inactive based on whether they have made their payments to the provider. He also summarizes the pro's and con's of using this architecture.
Because I have no working experience with this structure and architecture I don't know what the performance caveats would be so I can't say whether or not I support it, but I will say that I do find it interesting.
It's a good read to get the brain going though.
-Zach