ie: Web application or not. Yes, you can do what you describe on the web, but you knew that.
In any case, I prefer phpMyAdmin to the new MySQL Command Center specifically because of the automatic updating of fields in the Command Center. If I change four fields in a record, it actually executes four updates. I can't do four changes and commit as a single update.
For MySQL this is not a huge issue for some people, but if (when, oh please oh please, when) we go to Postgres the constraints kick in. What if changing the first field will cause the record to not validate, and the update is only valid once you've updated all four fields?