I've got to agree with Blandry on a lot of the sentiments aired. Technology has given end users so much but for people in support I feel we are fast becoming slaves to it rather than liberated by it. This is also partly due to the expectation that more can be done by less people in a shorter time, after all we have computers to do it all, right?

Of course SQL should go down the road of self tuning, not to do so would be nonsensical. Probably more important is the presentation of performance information be improved and better at highlighting where issues exist.

If changing a configuration item has a high likliehood of doing more harm than good it should not be visible through the GUI