How much money do you wager that Salesforce license costs?

I know there's the whole build-vs-buy debate, but with the cost of Salesforce, might it not be better to just stick everything in a database and throw a MySQL WYSIWYG tool like phpmyadmin in front in order to let non-engineers see the schema and build forms?

I suppose if you're earning money hand over fist (or keep getting VC funds) then the cost of your Salesforce license doesn't matter. But I bet that hurts. And unlike a lot of the other software in use, Salesforce comes with steep lock-in.