This basically repeats the ORM arguments/counter-arguments, but now it's a slightly more complex data structure instead of the DB-row-as-hash/array you get ther

This basically repeats the ORM arguments/counter-arguments, but now it's a slightly more complex data structure instead of the DB-row-as-hash/array you get there. "row-driven" in this context often leads to barely wrapped DAO Objects. On the other hand, sometimes (surprisingly often) a hash is good enough and the effort spent in modeling the database (...) doesn't need to be replicated. And as with ORMs/SQL generators/DAOs/etc., there's a whole spectrum of solutions and you really have to look at the task to see what's appropriate...