Recently worked on an interesting requirement where client does not want to implement webutil or java bean for the forms on the web. However they wanted users to copy and upload contents of a flat file/csv to the server. These file sizes are smaller around 30K.
Solution was to create a multi line text item with max size of 32676. Then using the plsql utl_text io create a file on the database server (Directory). Then using the external table read the file and insert to table.
If the file size is more than 32KB, then the user has to split the file into multiple chunks. This method worked faster than the typical webutil/ file upload bean.
And the reverse is also possible. Another client requirement was to download a file from the database server without using webutil. In this case we read the file using the external table and created a report with output format as csv/txt file. From the forms used web.show_document.
Much faster than the webutil/java bean.
Just sharing my 2 cents.
Thank you
RajeshAlex