> > 2) If they had some level of concurrent update/read, you'd see
> > different results.
>
> Maybe this isn't the best part of Postgres. Or MySQL.

Sure, but you also have to understand that they are testing OLAP
"features", not OLTP. For OLAP in many cases you do need bulk load +
joins with star schema.

> All queries used old-style syntax. Would Fb do better with explicit
> joins?

Most likely yes, at least some time ago there was report that AS3AP
test performs better in case of INNER JOIN compared to SELECT FROM a, b.

Roman