We use phdbase still. The manual actually is in a dbf, I'll dig it out.
I'm not familiar with the problems reported by others apart from the reentrant issue if the dll is used by more than one app at the same time. That was never fixed. Certainly Phdbase used to be enthusiastically promoted and supported by its author, Jim Korenthal, but subsequently he stopped selling or supporting. There was talk of open sourcing it into VFPX, but nothing came of it.
"... They ne'er cared for us
yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more
piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
there's all the love they bear us."
-- Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act 1, scene 1
