>I could *never* use an APPEND BLANK in my framework because even the thought of APPENDing a blank into a table with a primary key gives me the willies. Surefire way to invite the dreaded "Primary key violated" error!

Not if you have a robust procedure for assigning a default value to that field.... This is the safest way, as it will take care of _any_ method of adding a new record, including BROWSE.