[roller]

Just on your #2: I'm not entirely sure how the graphical executions plans help in the end. I've seen too many plans that wouldn't fit on 30" display. The postgresql explain text format is reasonable, and can even be automatically logged when queries are slow [1].

http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.3/interactive/auto-explain....

[taspeotis]

If an execution plan doesn't fit on your 30" monitor then you've probably got a more sophisticated query that requires more analysis than simply eyeballing execution plans for clustered index scans or places where predicate pushing hasn't worked as effectively as you hoped.

External tools aren't really in the scope of this discussion, but while SSMS does a pretty good job of visualizing execution plans SQL Sentry Plan Explorer does a better job (a more compact view with a color gradient for the most expensive operators) and makes my job even easier.

http://www.sqlsentry.com/products/plan-explorer/sql-server-q...