>>The volume is huge. In the range of 5K records per hour, 12 million per year, 24 months active before deletes.
>>That's the header table. Detail can be X 6 on average for records.

Hi Michel,
if you will pile that much data the guy is right. The web solution is ASP.Net/(C#orVB) and SQLServer-back-end, the Client part could be VFP. We already do this way of redesign because of the same reasone for German turistic company.
If you interesting I can provide more info
HTH