Now that you mention it, I guess I've experienced *similar* issues (more to do with joins, unions, materializations, windows, etc) even when there is a query pl

Now that you mention it, I guess I've experienced *similar* issues (more to do with joins, unions, materializations, windows, etc) even when there is a query planner. Even though the query planner has an optimizer, the plan produced isn't optimal. In some cases I have had to play around with the SQL (resulting in less than ideal SQL) to get the optimizer to do what it should. This demonstrates the exact point you made: > The advantage is predictability of execution In my example, while I ultimately overcame the issues with the sub-optimal plan, there's no assurances about what the query planner/optimizer will come up with tomorrow.