I took a slightly different approach. While solving the original problem certainly has merit, I can also foresee people wanting to solve problems like "Show me all years that begin...

Almost forgot, Joe.  If you want to see how what you're calling "God Numbers" are being used and why they're important, then just click on the following Microsoft article.  Once...

You do realize that the index on Product_Name is going to have a wee bit of a problem if it ever exceeds the maximum number of bytes for an index,...

Another thing that could affect this is stats that need to be updated.  Distribution of data within the index could also be a factor and easily have a tipping point...

Good article.  I'm curious though.  Should the number ever be negative in such a case?  I'm thinking that the TINYINT actually caught an anomaly for you.