I'm all but certain that a CTE and an unindexed view are treated identically in the planning phase. You're describing predicate pushdown, which can get hung up

I'm all but certain that a CTE and an unindexed view are treated identically in the planning phase. You're describing predicate pushdown, which can get hung up under certain conditions, like when using window functions or top. If I had to take a shot in the dark, you were dealing with something like that.