>Seriously I've done this stuff. I don't own a copy of SQL server 7, but own a version 6.5.
Walter,

I would stringly recommend that you get 7.0 of SQL Server, it is the version that made drastic changes in many of the negative issues related to SQL Server. Performance was one of those issues, 7.0 is much faster than 6.5 was.

Other than that I agree with your comments. I alos find the reasons that influence me to choose one over the other are not involved with performance at all, especially since SQL Server 7.0.