The trick is making database administration invisible to the user. Since Firebird requires no administration, it's easy. The single file database architecture in Firebird is also easy since you generally have only one drive.
The decision not to create an embedded Postgres version is never about administration issue. If we want to, we can make Postgres administration and configuration as minimum as possible by creating, say, a pg_autotune daemon that monitors the OS, db activity, and usage pattern, and automatically adjusts the kernel and/or db parameters. I think there's something like this in Oracle 10g and perhaps someday there will be too in Postgres.
It's about reliability. Running the app and dbms in the same process space will not guarantee that bugs in app will not mess up the database.
And after all, the "Firebird requires no administration" statement is more of a marketing gimmick anyway. Is it really 100% DBA-free? Can Firebird automatically connect to newegg.com and buy an extra harddisk if it runs out of disk space? :-)
To me Postgres is already pretty low in administrative demand as it is. Not that it cannot be improved, of course.
-- dave
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TIP 9: the planner will ignore your desire to choose an index scan if your
joining column's datatypes do not match
