[development] mysql merge tables and partitioning

[Rowan Kerr]

What about using ARCHIVE table instead of MERGE. It's basically 
optimized for watchdog style data.

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/archive-storage-engine.html

To me, it doesn't make sense to spend time making the db schema more 
complicated and relying on a table type that is already deprecated (and 
implemented only by one database). (Didn't people want a cleaner db 
design for the next release?). If you really want this type of 
behaviour for large log tables, think about working on it from a 
partitioning point of view which is supported by more db's (and will be 
more future-proof).

-Rowan