Hi Walter

>Let me ask a question... Which setting do you use the most.

ON, but I don't think thats really the point. Do you have any idea how confused a newbie to VFP was when they deleted a record? You should be able to figure out the confusion for yourself.

>The VFP team had no difficulty at all to change the SET CENTURY setting from OFF TO ON in the move from VFP5 to VFP6. People who had it defaulted to OFF had to adapt.

The reason they did this is to force Y2K compatiblity just 1 - 2 years before the storm.

Most of everything else you say can be awnsered to by: Backwards Compatiblity.