I'm not convinced that this module needs to maintain its own schema. How about reworking things so that it operates like so:

  1. A content type called "Release" (or similar) is created upon installation.
  2. A "Release tags" vocabulary is created upon installation.
  3. When the user wishes to create a new release, he or she creates a new instance of the Release content type.
  4. Upon creation of the release, an associated term is automatically (using Rules) added to the Release tags vocabulary and all of the current revisions of content are tagged with this term. This will work in Drupal 6 and above because Taxonomy terms are associated with node revisions, not nodes themselves. Perhaps this is why folks were initially hesitant to use Taxonomy?
  5. Some default Views could be set up to browse releases.

The modules would then depend on CCK/Fields, Taxonomy and Rules. Views would be optional. It could also add some UI goodness to make it easier to manage these.