>I doubt that many people code their applications where it checks for the existence of every file, every time it is accessed.

I Do! I use wrappers to open any cursors (I only use SQL Server data but the same can apply to VFP Tables)

The problem here is not really opening cursors, this can be easilly wrapped into safe function, the problem is using the cursors after they are open. If you want your code to be "Open dialog" free you have to pollute your code with if used() everywhere.