I did some tests. For good or for ill, I found that the XML & Table of Numbers worked better than anything else when dealing with large tables and complex queries. The function just didn't work that well. Yes, the LIKE clause always lead to table scans, so while it was sometimes faster than the function, depending on how well the function was working with the clustered index in the tables for the queries I was testing with, overall, it just didn't cut the mustard once I went to really complex queries.