SQL & PL/SQL

All,
This isn't a feature in Oracle, as far as I know- but here's what I'd like to be able to do:

Assume I have a very large fact table (think billions of rows) with 17 keys and 50 measures. I need to add another measure to the table. What I'd like to do is build the additional measure in a separate table with the same keys but just a single measure column and "stitch" the two together. The end result is a very large fact table with 17 keys and 51 measures. This sort of "vertical partitioning" would be extremely useful in a data warehousing environment. For example, vertical partitions (partitions containing a subset of non-key columns) could be truncated, swapped, split, merged via syntax very similar to current partition management operations. Assuming the operation was quick, a recalculation of a single column could take place "offline" (so to speak). Add in some support for transportable tablespaces, and you'd have a very nice set of features.

I know you can accomplish similar things by simply joining tables, bitmap join indexes, etc.. But I was thinking it would be nice if the engine could do some of the heavy lifting and management with more efficient internal structures, rather than make a data architect figure it out every time. :-)

Some of you keener folks will probably go "oh, you can already do that by ... " and cite a nifty whizbang feature of Oracle 10gR2 that I haven't found in my digging through the docs yet. Go ahead- I won't be offended.