Not grokking models, please help

[eluser]mddd[/eluser]
I think it helps to think of a CI Model as 'the thing that handles User stuff' (in this case). That's different from 'the object that IS a user'.

WanWizard's tip is a good one, there are extensions that do this a lot more 'object like'. Although I think that in total memory usage those solutions might quickly get large too. Because if you really want to keep it consistent, every object will need its own model. So getting a list of users with some related properties will instantiate a lot of objects!

I think in many cases, CI takes the 'middle road' between separated objects, efficient building and small memory use.