>I think it's better to do maintenance more regularly, say, once a week. In our case we have a different application based on SDT, which we can run on demand ourselves to update structure, copy database, reindex, repair.
That's OK; once a week or once a year, it doesn't matter much. Tore's point is more or less:
Some programmers, perhaps because they are new to FoxPro / Visual FoxPro, think that they have to PACK every time they delete a record. This is not the correct design.
Difference in opinions hath cost many millions of lives: for instance, whether flesh be bread, or bread be flesh; whether whistling be a vice or a virtue; whether it be better to kiss a post, or throw it into the fire... (from Gulliver's Travels)