Hi Timo,
Are those mailing list objects are like postings of this forum? If yes then I guess it would be ok to put them into CR. So they can also be searchable. I am not 100% sure but I think this forums is also a CR app. I think the bboard package is also a CR app, also not sure (a bit out of touch of OACS).
Since you are also looking at using package_id for your templating you may want to look at CR capability of relating a template on an item level. Also the templating of CR does enable you to relate many templates on a single item. You can use different context (not context_id) for each item.
Also I think the size of the table rowise is not much an issue for rdbms. As long as things are properly queried and indexed. This is what I have picked up here in OACS, of course I am not a db guru.
On the other hand CCM I think adopted the use of acs_objects.name column to display the name of the object, not sure also.
Anyway I am not saying that your proposal is not good, I am just offering some thoughts. I can not decide on its merits as I am trying to keep up with OACS. I think Don and others can give better thougths... Long day for me, I better sleep.
