Nice question, made me think about what "approximate" means.

Is always true to say, as in the explanation, that because the value of float variable is approximate, it can never = 1?

It must equal some value or other and may under some conditions = 1 perhaps? Or not ? Still don't know really.

Or are we talking about the inapplicability of the equality operator ?

BTW, I think ROWCOUNT stops having this effect in versions of SQL server later than 2005