Why I find MySQL to be so bad compared to Firebird

MySQL is the most used Open Source database engine. I have personally used it for almost 10 years. I worked with versions 3.x, 4.x and 5.x of MySQL, but I also used other database engines, some of them handling the same “data-set size” as MySQL, while others have been smaller databases (mostly Desktop based databases such as SQLite, MS-Access and Paradox).

This is the first part of my complaint about MySQL and why I dislike it.