Yep, I'm new. But actually my mistake was not reading the subject line properly, rather than not doing enough RTFM - I was thinking it was a general question about "database-backed pages" rather than an OpenACS specific question. Whoops 😊
I also note from doing a bit more reading that mySQL has come along a bit since I last looked at it. Transactions, no less! Of a sort, anyway. Interesting.