Full-text searching has always been something of a disappointment for me.

SSIS is one of those tools that when I come back to it I spend a week swearing at it before I click into its way of working. I spend time fighting the tool rather than using it.

Service Broker is one of those facilities that was, on paper, very interesting but fell somewhat short and was overly complex.

It's very noticeable that the people who were evangelising about storing XML in the DB now regard it as a burden and a curse. They're onto JSON/BSON now! I await their next passion like a benevolent Grandfather. The old man's mistress is not the young man's whore etc.