It seems like most of the time i'm tuning, i have a specific query plan , either from a query, a procedure, or from the cache when i checking top 20 slowest;
I save the actual query plan as well as the suggested script together, so i can show that the suggested change*(new index, code modification, whatever) was due to results found in a query plan, and then i can show the current plan on demand, to compare differences.
Lowell