Re:Why I'd rather not use PostgreSQL (Score 1)

"Yes [it requires updating the reference count for read transactions], but as mentioned before, only the act of updating or deleting a tuple causes a version conflict."

You probably inferred my point, but I should have made it clear. My main "concern" was the overhead involved in updating a reference count for a simple read operation.

The grandparent compared vacuum with garbage collection. Your suggestion sounded to me like reference counting, so I was just pointing out the known issues.

Unfortunately I haven't had the pleasure of hacking PG code, so I'm just speculating.