As pointed out in the article I posted, beginning in SQL Server 2005, the optimizer converts IF (SELECT COUNT...)>0 to an EXISTS under the covers, so I would expect those to have the same plan.

On the subject of sharing the plans with us, you should be able to turn on Include Actual Execution plan, run the query, and then when you look at the execution plan, right click and save it as a .sqlplan file. Then you can include the .sqlplan files as attachments in a post here for us to take a look at.

Cheers!