No where near enough information to be able to even start formulating a recommendation.

I never said anything about the definition of expensive. In fact, I used the word only to give an idea of what a query cost is

If you mean the origin...

What's the file name of the patch? What's the exact version of SQL Server on that machine (SELECT @@Version)?

Are there multiple instances on that server?

Depends how long a backup/restore takes, but

And that was about a 120GB...

Maybe, maybe not, no idea without seeing...

What is needed (CPU, IO) to run the query.

You've got no testing phase, no time allocated to fix issues found. Upgrading to 2014 or beyond WILL have things that need fixing, due to the change to the cardinality...

It'll depend on how many things need fixing, anything from no effort to months of work.

Plan for a two-phase project. Test the system on SQL 2014, take note of...

I uploaded the slide-deck in progress. Comments?

http://www.sqlsaturday.com/554/Sessions/Details.aspx?sid=53948

I don't know who else (if anyone) is on the panel. Guess it'll be a surprise on the day.

A portion of the RANGE_ROWS, based on how far in to the interval SQL expects the specified predicate value to be, plus 16, the EQ_ROWS for the high key.

Not really. Cost is a measure of how expensive the query is, not how long it runs. A long time ago (~1995 or earlier), cost was calibrated as how long...

Don't shrink your DB. No need. SQL will reuse empty space within the file.

You can delete data that isn't needed (don't drop indexes, they may be needed for acceptable query...

You probably want to get more drive space in that case.

Databases grow, that's their nature.

So, I got roped into doing a professional development session for the local SQL Saturday.

"Becoming a successful SQL Developer"

Never done a professional development session before. Not sure how to approach...

Run your rollback scripts.

If you don't have rollback scripts, then you're looking at restoring a copy of the database to a point before the deployment and then trying to synchronise...