Debate - DB's versus Class-driven data structures

I despise databases of any kind, Access, Oracle SQL etc... But my work is beginning to involve large data structures that would be suitable for DB usage.

I am confident I can build a program that manipulates our data in the desired fashion, using Classes and OOP paradigms (ie. in stand-alone C# / VB.Net code). But the obvious choice for a DB savvy person would be a normal database.

My vb program would have many more features but at the same time would be less easy to export the data to another system.

What would you do?

Sincerely,

Databased-to-death, in Derby

I simply use a dabase as a datastore. All action on the data (manipulations, select, update, ect) are done in the classes, while at the same time serves up the data to the user interface.

TG