I asked a question, sheesh.
Narrow communication channels. Said question could be read as "hey! you left us out! why?"
Chill. :-) All I wanted to know was the reasoning behind the change, since none was provided in the original email. I don't think that's an unreasonable think to ask, given that Drupal 5's MySQL requirements were discussed here on the list. If "by whenever Drupal 6 is released the number of shared hosts running MySQL 4.0 instead of 4.1 should probably be low enough that we can get away with it in return for subqueries" is the answer, then fine; please just say that. (As I've said before, I have no idea what the current deployments are for MySQL 4.0 vs. 4.1.)
There was a reason provided: free support cycle ended and even 4.1 nears its doom so I can reasonable expect everyone to use at least 4.1 and the need for subqueries are immense. Eventually, I hope we can move to 5.0 and move stuff to stored procedures as it should be, just I do not think it'll be Drupal 6. Small moves :) Regards NK