Rating: 

• many INIT.ORA parameters have been dropped

  
  

• recommended OFA (alluded to) has been changed quite a bit

  
  

• hardware landscape has changed, a lot. Disk is dirt-cheap, local storage networks are the latest fad. There're some new RAID types and filesystems

  
  

• Web browsers are the most common clients; correct interaction with web servers (eg, staggered connection acquisition) is important

  
  

• using the cost-based optimizer is almost always the Right Thing, due to improvements

  
  

• many new index features/choices (and we all know how important indexes are!)

  
  

• new Oracle add-ons like interMedia and iFS can use some honest performance evaluations

  
  

In other words: a new edition is imperative!

PS: As to archiving being "not recommended", that's a pretty nuts piece of advice in this day of 24-7 HA being a routine requierment. Having your DB down with no backup is what I do not recommend.

K "V" Vainstein <v@musecorp.com>