You'll find lots of opinions on both sides of this question. IMO it's an individual design decision, and different apps will have different requirements. There was an interesting discussion abou this here on UT not too long ago. Look for thread #269678 (Coding, syntax & commands - "What's with the Pack command").

>What is the current school of thought on dealing with deleted records?
>Seems to me that recycling would be the best bet due to having to open a table exclusive in order to pack it.
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>What methods are used to recycle deleted records?
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>Do you always have an index on DELETED() so you can SEEK a record then do a REPLACE instead of a INSERT INTO?