[danieltillett]

I am not suggesting that the right data structure is not important, just that is not where the difficulty lies. I can solve problems that my far more CS knowledgable employees can't because I have a better understanding of the domain. My solutions are not always the most elegant, but they work (most of the time).

[thisisit]

My point is on the elegance of a solution. As you said your solution works but that can be attributed to your domain knowledge. But the affect of your solution might be understated. We have people who write direct queries after much discussion with us. While we can't directly point them out, the queries tend to run for hours affecting other people's work and then we have to rework the whole thing all over again.