Thanks again for your response, Villeroy!
Some thoughts:
- not all applications work with millions of rows. In a billing system e.g. items per invoice won't exceed a reasonable number and it would be useful to be able to edit them all at once (with all features a custom form design can offer, such as checkboxes and list boxes etc.)
- if load time isn't an issue for huge datasheet/table views, why would it be for basically the same thing, but with custom row layout.
- I think what I am seeking is possible in MS Access

: with the division of forms into "head", "detail" and "foot" you can define any design in "detail" and it will be repeated for each record
If no-one else has any suggestion for me I would like to close this thread and file a bug report/enhancement request.