Sorry for disappearing over the last few days.
(Note: It looks like Andreas has answered all the questions originally posed to me. If there were any that he missed, please ask again.)
A big thanks to Andreas for clearing a lot of things up. It sounds like we are indeed on the way to resolving virtually all of the issues people are having with the new db. These posts also confirm that we will continue to move forward with the development of the world db, so I'm very happy about that.
There is obviously still a lot of functionality that needs to be added and tons of data to assemble, but I promise to continue to work on this project feverishly as the remaining OOTP 12 patches are being released and throughout the "offseason".
Hopefully, the attention you guys are giving this feature will ensure that it remains a top priority going into OOTP 13.
Let's keep this wheel squeaking!