> How do people normally handle the DB upgrade issue?
>

It is relativly easy if you will write your own program to apply
upgrade scripts. You can select current schema version number (as you
already implemented) and apply upgrade script (or set of scripts if
target database is several steps behind).

--
Best regards.
Pavel Kutakov
SQLLY Development
Firebird Development Studio - complete development solution.
http://www.sqlly.com