>So I ask you, where's the physical n-tier in this? I feel compelled to distinguish between physical and logical.

So ok, physical n-tier isnt a requirement in your scenario. BFD. Are you saying that since you're not forced to tackle a physical n-tier solution there is no point in designing a logical n-tier system?

Perhaps you and I are making different points here... the way I see it, in your real world example if the initial solution was single tier the cost would be x amount of dollars. A year or two later the company opens a second office in another town with 10 more employees - batta bing, woulda/coulda/shoulda done the app n-tier. So now you have to rewrite it n-tier, and guess what... prolly gonna cost real to that same x amount of dollars for the rewrite. Where as if you would of written it logical n-tier to begin with, taking that app to a distributed architecture would be a whole lot simplier and less costly.