I can see what you're saying, and I can see your example is using some very useful commands to get it speeding along.

It's vey difficult for me, and likely others, to come up with a scenario that can't be handled in a single select, or at least a single select + minor alterations on returned result-set.

There may only be one way around this for me to be able to come up with a realistic example using proper data, I would have to use SQL SELECT as little as possible. Example: Our client's have referrals, getting the latest referral is simply a MAX in SELECT, but, if I was to get all the Referrals for that client, and then work with them in a local environment we could perhaps perform a solid and meaningful comparison.

Obvoiusly both apps will do the same thing, retrieve the data + dig around it....now all I need to do is identify table(s) with enough data worth munging.....

Kev