Thanks for posting this. I found it very insightful and relieving because I thought I was the only person that missed things like this. It took you a long time to figure this one out (it would have taken me longer) and it's so close to the surface I bet you even gave it a thought in the beginning. I can almost see the process...

"Hmmm...it's gotta be an index. Perhaps this Varchar(9) and Varchar(10) thing would be an issue....NAH, you can't get any closer to matching datatypes than that!"

At least, that's how my brain would have seen it. Then, it would have been the absolute LAST thing I tried, because, "there's NO WAY a varchar(9) and varchar(10) would make a difference".

Again, thanks for posting and making your findings clear and concise (nice code and screenshots).

Gabe