> Instead, we rolled forward by creating a new app, and helping them copy environment and data from the deleted app to it. So even where soft deletion was theor

> Instead, we rolled forward by creating a new app, and helping them copy environment and data from the deleted app to it. So even where soft deletion was theoretically most useful, we still didn’t use it I don't get this statement. You wouldn't have had the env or data without soft delete? You did use it! I would say, soft delete isn't a tick the box and done solution as many ORMs make it. You need to consider the data model, and adjust your queries to that. It may make sense for a product to be deleted, but orderlines still able to access it to display product name etc. With blob data, I tend to move that to a "bin" with a 30-60 day grace period. Customers know quickly reporting, we can fully recover, while outside that time they'll have to provide images etc. It's a decent compromise. Reuse of unique fields is the sticking point I run into often, as mysql interprets null as not clashing with other nulls so composite uniques using the ID and deletion date don't work.