[dx034]

Formatting is obviously an issue but the query length isn't a sign for bad programming. I've created some queries that probably have nearly that length. They filter, join and prepare data in ways that would probably need as much LOC in other languages while running much faster (as the database server can better optimise for structures). In this case there obviously was a problem but it could've been that someone changed an index in one table which then affected the query.

But I agree, I also don't like running databases billed by load. The risk of costly bugs is just too high.