>I don't think that NOFILTER is really the key here. First of all, only for a limited number of queries, VFP creates a filtered view. Second, it has done the same since many versions back. Usually people worked around that by adding a field to the result that or by adding WHERE .T. to the filter condition.

Yes, I shouldn't try and speak for everyone, I guess...but this has become such a standard scenario for me. I use a number of quite large "information" tables into grid/cursor NOFILTER, and need a writeable cursor after the query. These tables already have quite large CDXs, and if you look at how much a deleted index adds, it's quite substantial. None of these tables ever contain deleted records, nor do I do COUNTs or other such things, strictly SQL to cursors, and according to my real-data tests, the deleted index my only slow the query down a little, but never speed it up.

Do you agree there is no benefit for a deleted index for this circumstance? Anyway, your point that this could be done earlier is certainly accurate, but now we have a better and more standard control mechanism with NOFILTER, that is why I take the mentioned point of view, that NOFILTER is really an important aspect here. And, of course, I don't know exactly when writable cursors became possible (through SQL/USE DBF AGAIN), but it was not common knowledge until fairly recently...