"Ian A. Newby" <ian@...> wrote:

>
> What benefits are there to using a character set other than none?

If you're 100% sure you won't have any need in non-ASCII characters, there
are no practical benefits.

> What pitfalls are there?

1) Slower data conversions (10-20%)
2) Bigger record size (more disk reads)
3) Maximum index key size will be 4x less


Dmitry