I cannot tell you what is right or wrong. I can only tell you what I would do if I were in your shoes.
There are times when storing large chunks of data is wise. But for files which are only to be downloaded later, you would lower your SQL usage and overhead to leave them in a direct-download format.
This is how I feel. I may be wrong.
The books I read on the subject seem to concur.
The only thing that makes me unhappy is slow page loads due to poor programming.
=)
