Should it be database independent?

That depends on what it is, doesn't it? For most of the things I create I don't find database portability to be worth very much. I'm roughly as likely to abandon MySQL as I am to abandon Perl!

Maybe if the SQL standard was more usable it would be worth writing to, but frankly, it's not. There's a reason that there isn't a single database product which supports ANSI SQL and nothing else; it's not enough.

-sam