[iblaine]

CTEs still give me anxiety due to their inability to be potentially not be optimized. I know many database engines today optimize for this type of thing, I'm thankful for it, but there was as time 10+ years ago when CTE expressions could take down databases. I also blame DBT for convincing people that CTEs are good. CTEs are only good if used correctly.

[emodendroket]

Well, even if you are unmoved by the readability thing, I don't think there's a non-CTE answer to recursively finding rows.