Holy cow, that's a ton of HUGE questions. Most of them can be answered, it depends.

To start with, it is possible to have too many relationships, but to determine if...

Copy db or a Restore should work. The restore would have to include renaming the physical files. It's easier to use TSQL, but if you want to use the GUI,...

I would have hoped for more of merge join than a loop...

Disk operations working the way they do, more spindles is better than fewer. That's at least part of why SAN's (properly configured, propertly maintained, etc.) succeed so well. I would...

Is it possible that you have cascade delete set up on the table? That might explain rows being deleted seemingly without action.

If you want to try to catch what's happening,...

You're trying to select multiple rows into a single variable. That just won't work. What about running that same XML query directly against the data rather than trying to move...

Now that I've taken the time to actually think about the answer to the question, yes, you'd need to recreate the script inside a monitor. Seems a bit odd to...

You're right. I don't know where I got that idea. Sorry about the bad information. I hate doing that. I shouldn't post based on vague notions.

I should have mentioned, VSDB is EXTREMELY expensive. It's a wonderful solution if you can get it, but most people are going to be happy with Red Gate or DBGhost.

I would go for breaking down all the objects into the individual create scripts necessary to maintain them.

We use Microsofts Visual Studio Team System Database Edition. It can do full...

Which functions as a very good advertising tool for...

I agree with using views for security purposes, but, as Jeff noted, you shouldn't ever go more than a layer deep on views because you will run into performance issues....

In addition to setting up backups (4 months?), you should put all your data structures and code into source control.

I agree. It makes sense to offer the columns rather than trying to guess if you're excluding them.

I've found intellisense to work pretty well so far. I'm still more in...

Late to the game...

Great comments Steve. I agree 100%. I remember a dot com emergency where I spent almost three days with little sleep and I was messing up at...