> So, I believe the rule should be either:
>
> - All clients are able to consume data in UTF-8. Period. All Delphi
> users will cry when they start to convert Unicode strings to SBCS and back.

FBClient is not required to break external API

Even if, for example in FB3, new version of wire protocol introduced, making Unicode or charset specification madatory, that would not break Delphi applications, provided that FBClient would make it's work of translating wire protocol to used DLL API correctly, including transparent charset changes if needed.

> - All clients get what they ask for. Those asking UTF-8 get UTF-8, those
> asking WIN1251 get WIN1251, and when umlauts are stored - they get an
> error "Cannot transliterate characters between character sets".

The fact that BLOBs can get around such limitations would lead to "VARCHAR too" wishes, and they would be reasonable :-)