Agreed. The first rule of computing is that anything can do everything -- it's just a matter of how challenging it is to implement. The notion of transactions

Agreed. The first rule of computing is that anything can do everything -- it's just a matter of how challenging it is to implement. The notion of transactions were invented not for performance, but because they are easier to reason about. So much easier that it often means the difference between a project that never finishes and a project that finishes so early that you have time to spend on optimization and caching.