Agreed. But to be fair I've not yet encountered such a library/tool yet. All tools I've seen leave the active table alone, and simply create a new table, do all

Agreed. But to be fair I've not yet encountered such a library/tool yet. All tools I've seen leave the active table alone, and simply create a new table, do all their work there, and finally somehow switch the two tables (either in naming or routing queries). Some even perform the work on a different database server.