I've done this and i'm doing this, its not hard, everyone that needs db access can read a readme and give me a public key in a matter of seconds. I'll take SSH over http-auth and a freaken app that can drop tables/database via a SQL injection bug any day of the week. Granted that could be from poor user management, as NOONE has access to do anything destructive.
I really don't care if you don't believe me, b/c this process has been fluid with 0 issues since i started using it about 6 years ago. Oh and yesterdays users were 100% ordinary users (it doesn't get much more ordinary than marketing), they were added to the slave group with select only, and didn't get added to anything production related.
To your next email, phpMyAdmin will never be part of a production stack. I'll trust that you know how to handle your users and trust that I will do what i feel is best for me.