Once again, such good explanations/teaching.

I'm like an earlier poster. I haven't been able to find an advantage to the pivot syntax. (Though unpivot came in handy once.) I keep wondering and wondering why MS thought the pivot syntax would be a benefit. What do they see as the advantage over the simple CASE statement?

You not only pointed out the complexity of the pivot syntax, but gave us comparative performance stats too. Very helpful.

I'm like others on this posting in that I'm looking forward to seeing solutions on dynamic cross tabs/pivots.

Thanks. - JJ