Both articles make good points, but note that I did say with some reporting applications. For instance it would be wasted time with a Crystal report.

I think that the original blog picked an example that doesn't really line up with the conversation that we're having, but his opinion is valid never the less, except the part about the T-SQL example being more difficult to read than C# or VB. That would definitely be an 'in the eye of the beholder' opinion.

As for performance. That is always a consideration, but tweaking it to the max can be a luxury item with some jobs. For instance with a medium sized company needing a custom report from an over-powered, under-utilized database server. I don't work with Enterprise level projects every day, but my time still counts, and ultimately giving the client the most bang for his buck is what we are measured by.