Hugo Kornelis (5/1/2014)
The TechNet documentation quoted above describes the ideal behaviour of optimizer + execution engine. It even explicitly says so: "the query optimizer assigns these roles so that the smaller of the two inputs is the build input".
The QotD focuses only on the execution engine, taking the compiled and optimized plan as a given. I was able to derive that from some wording of the question, but I do agree that this could have been clearer.
Thanks for the clarification on this. At least now I have some reference for the different interpretations of the QOTD that we have seen in this thread.
Brian