This article leaves me with more questions than answers.

First off, there are no indexes on the table in the example. How would adding indexes and inserting non-sequential data affect the batch performance?

Second, where does this performance gain come from? Is it just from the reduced locking? Could it also be related to row size vs page size?

Is there a way, short of trial and error, to come up with at least a good starting point for an efficient batch size given a particular table schema?