Not sure how well this principle goes together with Ethereum account model. Unlike Bitcoin, Ethereum is a big state machine: it recognizes a concept of accounts and tracks the state (e.g. balance) of each and every account. In Bitcoin you have unspent transaction outputs associated with particular address and each such output has to be spent in its entirety. In Ethereum, at least as far as user control accounts goes, one address = one account and transactions either increase or decrease balance of that account. In short, you don't track inputs and outputs, you track balances. And that's a completely different world.