> I'd also like a proper SQL and first-class table support, but we work with what is supported by Internet Explorer 11.

If you were thinking about WebSQL, then sticking to IE11 has skipped you over an obstacle course in web standards, because WebSQL was abandoned by the browsers (for good reasons, led by Mozilla and Microsoft trying not to let SQLite bugs define the web platform for decades) and won't be supported again soon, in lieu of the much simpler key-value store called IndexedDB.

> JavaScript's lack of a built-in parser is a real bummer

eval() wasn't sufficient for your needs?