Daniel, thanks for your input and your feedback.
I agree with you. Actually, I have seen cases where so many locks exist on small and static tables that the application layer was really slowing down.
I guess the only danger of not using referenced tables would be data integrity. I usually enforce integrity with the reference table, but use bitwise operators to get to the data, when it makes sense.
Herve
Herve Roggero
hroggero@pynlogic.com
MCDBA, MCSE, MCSD
SQL Server Database Proxy/Firewall and Auditing