> Back at you, to ask yourself why select count(*) is a "weakness" at
> all? What on earth do you want it for? It has its possible uses
> in aggregate queries, where it doesn't pose a performance problem,
> but what is a sensible reason for counting all of the rows in a
> table? And, if you do count them, which ones are you going to
> count? and why?

How about some OLAP-type queries:
- how many orders did we ship last month?
- how many customers have ordered widget X?
Or think about a web forum, displaying the number of reads, comments,
etc. for a specific article.

I agree that index-based count(*) is probably not a must-have feature,
but to discount it wholesale is a bit steep, I think.

Paul