Is it just me, or do Helpers and Active Record add more work than they save?

[eluser]WeeJames[/eluser]
I use it just for Inserts/Updates but prefer to write my selects by hand. Especially as most of my selects tend to be a bit more complex than can be reasonably created with ActiveRecord.

[eluser]wouaren[/eluser]
Just imagine that one day you'll have to separate database servers and selects will be on server one and inserts on server 2 then if you have 2000 sql queries like this :

$this->db->query('blablalbl');

you're [edited]*d !

But if you have 1000 queries like $this->db->insert and 1000 $this->db->select that'll be easy to separate servers.

[eluser]xwero[/eluser]
Maybe i'm wrong but the database sever doesn't affect your queries as far as i know?? Or is it because you are putting them on other servers you are going to change the field and/or table names??