Database is a great analogy. Amusingly enough, I'd say that a key trait of many gifted kids is they keep their database fully indexed and normalized. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database_normalization

DS8 doesn't question nearly as much as he used to. Don't know if he grew out of it, was socialized out of it, or has just shifted to a more internalized approach. Or maybe he just doesn't do it so much at home unless we've accidentally bought an argument from him.