I think consistency is most important. If we use .xql files mostly we should just use .xql files always. I know there are not many (not any) tools for auditing openacs code, but I worked on a project with around 200,000 SLOC and we wrote tools to check for a lot of mistakes that compilers would never find.
Part of our ability to do so (and produce military aviation quality code) rested on following a coding standard. It is MORE difficult for a novice programmer to figure out the system if things are done multiple ways.
I actually look forward to a time when we use the table-lite spec or the ancient (and secret) prototype-builder or some new-and-improved spec to generate XQL files from a table spec to allow rapid development (and forms and acs-objects, etc).. The more consistent we are with the way we build things, the easier the tool will be to write.
