You dont need to access database everytime if you have an application server. There are the database caches in the middle tier (9iAS), there are the connection poolings, etc.

I'm not saying pl/sql is bad, I use pl/sql when there are a lot of statements at once, then they are run at once since they belong to a single pl/sql block ... less network traffic.

Whatever, you have a lot of options ... the bigger the system is, the more you will have to separate the logic overhead from the database overhead.

F.