Throw exceptions on system failures rather than returning false

[mrclay]

Particularly low-level, non-API functions/methods (e.g. row_to_elggmetadata) which should not fail under normal conditions should throw instead of returning false/null. This would allow these functions to have fewer return types and remove the need for the caller to have code handling the error (which they usually don't anyway, most just pass the buck).

[cash]

Agreed.