I'm improving existing external driver - so far I managed to implement
parametrized queries, BLOB support and v6 datatypes (DATE, TIME, TIMESTAMP, 64-bit integers). I'm not sure whether it should support pre-v6 SQL dialects, though. My current reasoning is that we should move on with open-source releases (and that means 6.0 and later) ...
I'll put it public very soon, after I wrap things up.
Feel free to email me directly (or just post here) if you have some
suggestions/comments/questions/answers ...
Having choice between internal and external driver seems very cool 😊