Hello Derek,
I think in this context the CROSS APPLY clause isn't counted as part of the FROM!
Of course it is part of the FROM clause. APPLY is an operator that is used in the FROM clause. See BOL.
I totally agree that if you SELECT only from a TVF and don't join it to anything else, then it would be executed only once. But I cannot imagine that this (SELECT from TVF only) was the intention of the author.
Thanks for your comments though! Especially the hint with the optimizer.
Best Regards,
Chris Büttner