I certainly appreciate this discussion and the clear opinions of Mike. Somehow it turned my somewhat simple question into something much more interesting.
I believe in referential integrity, I also believe that enforcing a "fully saturated" data model like Mike proposes, is a constraint on data modeling that is not acceptable for me. Orphans exist in my (data modeling) world, and arguing about the validity of that will probably just end up in discussing contrived examples.
Anyway, thanks for sharing your opinions Mike. Oracle could have used you when the implemented the empty string... :-)
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