Good to know I am not the only one in that kind of problem.
I have no answer for you but I can share what I am just about to do to avoid the problem I am facing in the next upgrade of DBI.

Like you, I want to have a visual approach. I have a class library that subclass (A) all DBI OCX I use. I tried hacking the VCX whitout success.

I noticed that the Inheritance of an OLEControl does not work. I mean, I create a subclass (B) base on a subclass (A) of the DBI OCX that I have created. If I delete the DBI OCX subclass (A) and recreate it with new version and the same name, the subclass (B) base on subclass (A) does not inherite the new version.

But instead of subclassing an OCX directely, I create a container class (A) that include an OCX. Then I subclass (B) that container class (A) to include my specifics things. In that case, changing the OCX into the container class (A) also change the OCX into the subclass (B)

The advantage that I see: I only need to delete the OCX and add the new version with the same name into the container and all the subclass base on that class will be upgraded.

The diadvantage that I see: I will always have to resize the container and the OCX.

The fact the the container add one level deeper could be see as an advantage or disadvantage.

What do you thing about that?