Many databases benefit significantly from being able to optimize knowing that a column is a fixed-width integer, for instance (or a timestamptz--especially when

Many databases benefit significantly from being able to optimize knowing that a column is a fixed-width integer, for instance (or a timestamptz--especially when it comes to sorting and indexing!). SQLite has not historically cared much about these kinds of optimizations because it does not compete particularly well on execution speed with other databases for anything but very simple queries.