>Mike - I understand this and agree - however, what if country ("USA") were in there too as a joined in table - why should I have to group on country when they are all the same?

How does SQL Server know that all the values are the same?

>Also - there are times when I might want the "last" one - "last" being determined by the group/sort orders.

The sorting is done after the Grouping has been calculated. Do you really want SQL Server to sort the data twice to solve you query?

-Mike