Wow, that is interesting. I wonder what it is underneath that makes the difference. I'm cleaning up a lot of old data (horizontal and vertical), so this topic is quite opportune.

However, this is a bit off-topic here, as the QotD was not about reclaiming free space after deleting all or any rows from a table, but after deleting one column without removing any row.

Quite right. I'll take it elsewhere if I decide to pursue it.