This the key. I'm also a dreamer of a better RDBMs (https://tablam.org) and wish I could live doing it... but working on the sector of small business what they want is a better access/excel. Probably that is what bigger companies want too.
So the internal tech is just a mean to make that possible. I think if a db engine provide the equivalent of the auto-admin of Django it will sell itself easily :)
However this is also hard because DBs engines touch several complex things (storage, concurrency, compilers, interpreters, etc) and is hard to find people for this plus the funding.
There's a bit of a chicken and egg problem in that until you have compelling products demonstrating how your “better” RDBMS contributes to better business solutions, there's not something the technical people who understand the theoretical advantages can take to the less technical people that need to approve the decision to justify it over established RDBMSs, that are not only seen as more secure from a business perspective but also easier to hire qualified admins, etc., for.
So the internal tech is just a mean to make that possible. I think if a db engine provide the equivalent of the auto-admin of Django it will sell itself easily :)
However this is also hard because DBs engines touch several complex things (storage, concurrency, compilers, interpreters, etc) and is hard to find people for this plus the funding.