I don't often get the chance for the opportunity of teachable moments, but nevertheless I'll give it a try. I really like the questions you propose, that helps a lot on deciding the approach. =)

I'm not sure if you understood the fault laid at the tools and not my peers, or if your definition of inconvenience is the same as being incapable of working, but leaving your sarcasm aside, thanks for your thoughts and time.

@JoeriShoeby that is a good suggestion. It also troubles me not using a default value for the fields, but that is another question, hehe. Now, about keeping track of the updates, on some instances we also have a complementary log table, but only when it is important =)