Hi Mark,
- It is fine to use the database level tools on sde.default, or in the other words on the business/base table. This can be done by registering the data as versioned (with move edits to base option). Advantage of doing this is that all the edits that you make will go into the delta (adds and deletes) tables as well as the base table, this way you will be able to access all the recent edits without being dependent on the compress process. The disadvantage is that you will not be able to use this data with some functionalities like Replication, Archiving etc..
Refer the following web-link for more information on this -
A quick tour of registering and unregistering data as versioned
ArcGIS Help 10.1
- Multi-versioned views are accessible from the database level, therefore you can access them for sure, however there will be some dependency on what database level tools you want to run on them. Mostly, there will be no issues with it since the data created in ArcCatalog is anyway a part of the database.
- Once you register the data as versioned (with move edits to base option) you will have all the data present in the base table. This will allow you use database tools or third party tool on the feature class, however it is not recommended to edit this data using third party tools, try using only ArcMap for this.
- If I understand correctly, since you are using third party tools using OBJECTID to maintain referential integrity might not be accurate therefore plan for another field that can be effectively used to relate with all the tables. Having another field (with unique values) I think will be the best way for doing this.
- Abhishek