Most notable quote: "And screw the boss... it's not his/her hiney"

I Agree

Jeff, I have to disagree please see the example below:

Your reebar example does not include the filter nid = nid. Also note, on smaller queries the optimizer will pull all...

Try LastNonEmpty and such. What are you using the non-additive measure for?

Let's not forget Jamie Thomson http://sqlblog.com/blogs/jamie_thomson/

I don't know what you're asking, but try the PIVOT command. If the rows you want to convert to columns are dynamic you may need to execute a dynamic sql...

insert the records you want to save into a temporary table, drop and recreate the table in question, then insert the records from the temporary table into the newly created...

Ok so we are back to indexes being the likely cause issue. IMO it sounds like a page split. Make sure the fillfactor and pad_index are not set too high....

I agree with a slight modification if the EndDate is exclusive:

Logically you want all results from the table but only list results when the start date is before 'xx/xx/xxxx' and...

The question was not clear by any means. Additionally, the second example does not have a logical relationship that holds true for Start Date, End Date and TotalDays.

That sounds like a good explanation and would likely have a much greater impact on the insert performance.

declare @start_date datetime

declare @end_date datetime

declare @diff int

set @start_date = '3/9/2009'

set @end_date = '3/13/2009'

set @diff = datediff(dd,@start_date,@end_date)

create table #Results ([Month Start] datetime, [Month End] datetime, [Total Days] int, [Amount] money)

insert into...

you can find what indexes are on the table by using sp_helpindex 'tablename'

If indexes are the issue you can use profiler to monitor queries to the table and drop indexes...

try an index defrag.

Also when you do your simple queries do the following:

check the db for locks (sp_who)

include appropriate filters on argable fields

return limited results

select top 1 id from table...

Some people don't know how to write queries, or use there limited knowledge to complete a task (likely cause in this scenario).

I like to look at CTE's at temporary views....