So what? People still use Microsoft, still think SQL is relational, still think Oracle or MySQL are SQL-compliant... Vox populi is not vox Dei!

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Some of these certainly have been used with by installed services with userbases larger than fastmail.fm. I think that Mintersoft's VisualOffice software has an installed base of over 50 million accounts to date (or course over many services).

So what? How many of these services see the kind of usage FastMail does? Moreover, the fundamental problem with MySQL is that it shifts to application code typical DBMS responsabilities like transaction processing and integrity constraints. It might well be that these servers are simply better coded than FastMail...

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I don't think that MySQL per se is the problem.

Sure we can't be sure. But the problem FastMail had is typical of poor integrity checks and transaction control, and these are specific MySQL weaknesses... so...

Moreover, see that even after all the brouhaha, FastMail is still hiring coders, not DBAs.

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Besides, the licensing fees for commercial DBs are prohibitive for a small company. (That's why Oracle DBA's make so much $$$)

Ever heard of PostgreSQL, FireBird, InterBase, SAPdb? All of these do transaction better than MySQL, and SAPdb is even the upgrade path to MySQL.