How would you fix the query or indexes here? The CTE seems clearly a hack, effectively functioning as a hint. It doesn’t seem like it counts as fixing the query

How would you fix the query or indexes here? The CTE seems clearly a hack, effectively functioning as a hint. It doesn’t seem like it counts as fixing the query. I’m skeptical of this rule of thumb. I’m sure people misuse hints. But if someone thinks they “need” hints, my guess is they’ve tried changing the query and indexes.