requiring char_set and dbcollat?

[eluser]Derek Jones[/eluser]
Point noted, tonan, and I'll make sure it gets added to the Change Log. For your other questions, I'll direct you to this post.

I think the compatibility issue makes the need for extended database methods more noticeable.

That's not necessary - if you want legacy MySQL support, you can simply copy the existing MySQL driver to a newly named folder, change the db_set_charset() method to return TRUE, and maintain the legacy driver file. Since 4.0's lifecycle doesn't officially end until December of this year, that might be something we'd be willing to drop into the svn.