Maybe they could be convinced to use the "other" database supported
by Drupal :).
http://drupal.org/node/144228
What's the deal?
The root of the problem that our database server is overloaded. This
is causing table locks:
Table locking is also disadvantageous under the following scenario:
* A client issues a SELECT that takes a long time to run.
* Another client then issues an UPDATE on the same table.
This client waits until the SELECT is finished.
* Another client issues another SELECT statement on the same
table. Because UPDATE has higher priority than SELECT, this
SELECT waits for the UPDATE to finish, and for the first
SELECT to finish.
John DeSoi, Ph.D.
http://pgedit.com/
Power Tools for PostgreSQL