Using ODS objects for reporting purposes in BW

Is there a better way to store and report on such detailed information? Personally, I feel that they are using BW in the manner which they used Business Objects and have applied the same logic. We really need to move them away from such large objects.

There are many architectural considerations to your question as you may want to look at how you've modeled your data and how you have rolled up InfoProviders from a level of ODS objects to InfoCubes and again up to MultiCubes. With the right data architecture, you can push most reporting to a cube level and use jump targets or report-report-interfacing to access line item data is a controlled manner when required.