no worries, suggestion appreciated. It might be a great one, im not sure. Brian will know.
JR4 didn't have datastores so they're quite a new thing to get used to.
but once you get used to them they are awesome and you want everything to be a datastore.
standard mysql tables can be used too if you want to or as extra info setup but the beauty with a datastore is moduleA can write to moduleB's datastore to extend it without needing to alter its table structure.
One example of this is the jrTags module which when activated allows users (who are given permission to) to tag items with words. (the concept is pretty standard).
When something like an audio track is tagged, jrTag adds those tags to the jrAudio's datastore. so when someone requests a list of audio items, they get back the tags come out too.
Because of datastores jrTags is able to tag any other module that also uses a datastore. This means that future modules that also use a datastore are already compatible with the jrTags module.
No awareness needed.
Because of datastores and the 'events' and 'listeners' system (similar to hooks if you've used drupal) when one module requests stuff from its own datastore other modules can inject relevant info into the returning data.
its pretty cool.