Re: When to vacuum a table?

["Craig A. James" <cjames(at)modgraph-usa(dot)com>]

Rod Taylor wrote:
> > Just a minor clarification here: INSERT does not create dead rows, only
> > UPDATE and DELETE do. Thus, if you only insert rows, you do not need to
> > vacuum (although you probably need to analyze).

Is there no real-time garbage collection at all in Postgres?  And if so, is this because nobody has had time to implement garbage collection, or for a more fundamental reason, or because VACUUM is seen as sufficient?

I'm just curious ... Vacuum has always seemed to me like an ugly wart on the pretty face of Postgres.  (I say this even though I implemented an identical solution on a non-relational chemistry database system a long time ago.  I didn't like it then, either.) 

Craig