I hate that jet database as much as anyone, but my job is to deal with it, just like I had to deal with their stupid free/busy architecture before they changed it. Somehow what's important to me gets re-characterized as "cupholders", and what's important to you is all that anybody should really care about.
I'm sorry if the issue was that important. I have been involved in a lot of contracting and have seen many requirements drawn so that only one product would fit the bill, even if the one defining requirement was a cupholder. For example, instead of stating the free/busy architecture must not cause performance problems, you state that you need a specific free/busy architecture and describe the one that's in the new Exchange.
Move to iCal and no more Jet database. As far as the architecture, I don't even know if the problem exists for iCal. Exchange's problem could have been another case of Microsoft engineering itself into a corner, not applicable to anyone else.