I don't know of any other way to browser a dataset. You can issue Dataset.GetXML() from the command window and see its content, but depending on the structure of the dataset and data, that could get really ugly. Any problem about using the VFPToolkit? It works great for debug purposes.
back to your original problem, have you tried using SQL Profiler in order to see the SQL statement that's being sent to the database? that way you can copy the exact SQL Stamente from the profiler and paste it onto Query Analyzer. That might shed it some light... :)
Claudio Lassala