Big databases scare me. Those who administer them scare me even more.
I thought distributed systems were better?
It depends what distributed means - the term is often misused by those who should know better. A modern set of databases (no paper, no microfiche!) that happen to be distributed geographically
but with administrative links, good comms and common keys is little different to a traditional 'centralised' database (for data mining).
As you point out, administration is the key issue. Security, integrity, access control, audits, legal (data protection) rights, retention periods is what it's all about. The commercial world is starting to wake up on these issues, i have no idea what the governement's doing. The only guarantees are that government projects will go over budget and they won't insure for data losses.