So, extensive googling has failed me on this. I'm using the sql driver to output to an oracle database, with debugging mode, I can see that the insert queries are indeed being executed, however my tables remain empty.
I've been through the source code, and it doesnt look like a commit is being performed anywhere. Though my google efforts, I did find one reference where someone patched the libdbi-drivers oracle driver to do a commit on success after every query, but that is insanely expensive (and ugly).

I have started modifying the code to add the flush_lines and flush_timeout option to the sql driver. But before I got too carried away, I was wondering why this is the way it is the way it is, or if I'm missing something.