I ran some tests on 2005 and 2008 with AdventureWorks and about the only constant was that if an exactly-covering index existed, it was chosen. (These were additional indexes I created - not the shipped ones).

Other than that, even with twenty indexes to choose from, with varying numbers of INCLUDEd columns, in different orders, no clear pattern emerged. I thought for a moment that indexes with the required column *last* in the creation order were preferred; but no.

Fascinating question, but I ran out of time with it.

Paul