My application of choice for database maintenance is FoxPro, and it can use most of my SIxCDX index files.
It is based on the same language as Clipper (way back anyway), so most of the commands you know are available to you at the command prompt.
Multifile, multiuser (if required), indexes, relations, table edit/browse, append, delete ..., it has the lot of course as it is made for application development. You can write small (or large) prg files to automate an update process, one-off report extraction ... . I prefer FoxPro to Access because it is more like Clipper with typed commands.
Just got to remember to copy as type fox2x!
Hope that helps.