I think I'd make more use of the feature if it worked better with more standard features like referential integrity constraints; but I need the traditional RDBM

I think I'd make more use of the feature if it worked better with more standard features like referential integrity constraints; but I need the traditional RDBMS features more than I need a novel way to handle inheritance between related data structures.... so I don't often go there. I suspect that over the years demand for really filling this functional area out has probably not been priority. I agree that inheritance doesn't feel fully polished as compared to other feature sets, but I know this inheritance mechanism has been there for many years (may go back to the original design, not sure about that though): the earliest documentation I see for it is 2002. My guess is that it's not going to get that polish very soon, especially given that it's likely outside that average database developer's wheelhouse. Partitioning is probably the real driver behind it seeing much love at all.