Examples of using the Model class?

[eluser]Doug Lerner[/eluser]
Correct me if I'm wrong... I'm admittedly a super-newbie at CI....

I am getting the impression that since the Model part of MVC is "optional" in CI that what gets put into the models folder are really more or less "database helper functions" which might just as well be in the controllers folder as functions in a class definition there.

Is there a practical difference - something with the naming conventions of the framework, that make it useful to have these functions inside the models folder hierarchy?

Another thing I'm still not getting from the examples and discussion and docs so far - is there anything in CI per se that helps set up basic CRUD for a database table (in the way scaffolding and database migration does in Ruby on Rails, for example)? It seems that it takes as much time to set up a basic CRUD framework for a database table in CI as it would if doing it outside the framework.

But as I said, I am an admitted newbie at CI. Any other thoughts on how the framework assists in setting things up?

Thanks!

doug