Hi Ashley

>The routine seems to have worked just fine for 15+ years...

Why do people keep saying say that? Just because something worked for years does not mean it is intrinsically right. Asbestos insulation seemed to work just fine for years. :) To me, software is - to paraphrase Khan - bugs concealed.

By the way, including aliases in the index is not required unless the index spans two tables. It's recommended not to put aliases in the index expression, nor to have them span two aliases.