Lawrence,
Thanks for taking the time to write this.
I however do not totally agree. While in theory you are correct,
best practise is off course to have a update datetime field and probably also a updated by
column on tables. your stored procs or triggers should always update these fields.
This should always give you a different checksum.
Again theoretically you are right, but common "best practise" reality checksum is a viable option to track table changes.
H.