The comments on the Register site show an incredible lack of understanding of SQL and its internals. But hey, this is the internet, you don't need to udnerstand something befeore you bash it. Right?

I also think that the Register exaggarates the issues and pulls it out of context. The MSDN blog is more balanced.

I fail to understand how this problem has not been detected in the QA environment. Unless I have to assume that they decided to flip the compat level switch without testing, which is a direct violation of the advice MS gives to its customers: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn600374.aspx.

I also don't understand why, when the service went down shortly after deploying a change, the first reaction was not to immediately rollback the change. Because we all know that every major company always has a rollback script for any deployment, right? (And in this case, the script would have been reidiculously simple).

Just to make sure that we are all on the same page on TOP and ORDER BY - your last remark is cynical, right? You do know that there is a huge difference between TOP with or TOP without ORDER BY, right?