[ComodoHacker]

table.* doesn't really do any better. Database evolves, table's structure changes and you get various bugs and unpredictable behavior. From elusive exceptions to memory hogs to network bottlenecks, depending on DBMS, data itself and data access framework you use.

[huuu]

It does better when, for example, you have a field called 'id' in both tables.

  SELECT
      *
  FROM table1
  JOIN table2
      ON table2.rel_id = table1.id

will use one of the 'id' field from table1 or table2 (depending on the join type).

  SELECT
      table1.*
  FROM table1
  JOIN table2
      ON table2.rel_id = table1.id

will use the 'id' field of table1 and does not include data from table2.

But I agree with your other arguments.