... but I don't want to grant view server state permissions and all that it exposes...
What exactly are you afraid of? What dangerous things does it expose other than ability to use DMV's and DMF's to monitor server health/problems and tune performance?
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"The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing"
"O skol'ko nam otkrytiy chudnyh prevnosit microsofta duh!":-D
(So many miracle inventions provided by MS to us...)
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