>2- Selecting SQL-Server without too much thought about alternatives. I'd revisit that decison and look hard at MySqL or something like it.
>I might arrive at the same decision, but SQL-Server carries some baggage for our smaller clients that weren't there with VFP and that's really the only negative my clients have seen in the transition.

Fully ACK on giving the backend more thought instead of automatically staying MS.
On MySQL: probably still the most used OS DB-backend, but for me the negative points are:

mostly used by stand-alone in-house dev groups,
compared to PostgreSQL almost unanimously used by 3rd party dev systems:
Servoy, Alaska (xBase++), xDev and a few more as the basic "free install"

MySQL SQL only compatible mostly to forks like MariaDB already eating into their percentages -
with PostgreSQL you have greater similarity to Ora (or DB2, if their alternative SQL is used)

MsSQL at least gives you more Sybase compatibility - not a thiing to sneer at if you also consider Sybase Advantage,
but no heavyweight free solution.

MySQL licensing not too clear - and being a part of Oracle is another thing I'd worry about ;-)

my 0.0003€

thomas