I've used Sybase, MSSQL, MySQL, Postgres, and seemingly every .{1,2}?DBM in the fricking universe. Sybase has never failed me, tho I often failed it. MySQL is great till you advance past its abilities and for some projects it is indispensible. Prosgres is fast, free and has a bit more meat on the bone than MySQL. MSSQL I rate up there excepting only the first two letters. =) Just make sure you go though the options and turn off the MS weirdness modes.

I also tend to do things in Perl that I should do in SQL. It pays off when you may switch DBs but it kills you when you start to spread out and have to keep copying rules and tests about. Put the rules in Modules and you wind up adding a million methods to the Module or turning it into a spaghetti-calling nightmare with all the logic hid from you.

I suggest if it is time to fix your habits that you move the data correctness rules to the DB first. Don't get fancy, just setup case controls and ranges and such. Ease up on contorted tainting and start testing your inserts for failure. I was really pleased with myself for ust going that far =)

--
$you = new YOU;
honk() if $you->love(perl)