Sure, but that just kicks the can one iteration down the road, and now it's impossible to delete the record a SECOND time without "depriving" yourself of that i

Sure, but that just kicks the can one iteration down the road, and now it's impossible to delete the record a SECOND time without "depriving" yourself of that information. If you need an audit table, use an audit table, but being able to say "deleted_at > 1.month.ago" to grab all records deleted in the past month is super useful.