Unless I'm remembering wrong, isn't one of the benefits of using sqlite in this context that you get configuration persistence, live configuration modification, and customizable configuration frontends? The suggested solution, loading a dump file into a temporary database during start up time, completely defeats the purpose of all of these. It may be difficult to convince PHBs to use this because it's "different than other tools", but really, PHBs are going to complain about arbitrary things like that anyway (the manager who complaints about this isn't the one who has to learn the difference between the lighttpd and apache config file formats, for example). These are good goals for modern services to have.
Don't so it, Zed. The bikeshedders don't need a bone.
To clarify, I wasn't proposing to eliminate any of this.
I was only proposing a command line option allowing the user to pretend this doesn't exist, if you want to make their mongrel2 configuration "ninja proof" (to borrow Zed's language).
Don't so it, Zed. The bikeshedders don't need a bone.