- table-driven hostScalarString cases for nil and live pointers to string, ints, uint, float, bool, []byte, named string and double pointers
- DB-free hydrateMLRecord cases for nil, empty and filled *string hosts
- hostScalarString walks pointers via reflect; nil at any depth is ""
- string kinds return raw text, byte slices decode, other kinds format the dereferenced value
- Postgres round-trip regression for an mltext field on a *string column