Problem with query plan - Mailing list pgsql-general

I have come up with a simple query that runs horribly depending on the
number of columns selected.

select order_lines.*
from orders, order_lines
where orders.merchant_order_id = '11343445' and
  order_lines.order_id=orders.order_id;

merchant_order_id is indexed.
order_id is indexed.
Tables are analyzed.

I get the following plan:

---------------------------------------------------------
 Merge Join  (cost=nan..nan rows=3 width=1257)
   Merge Cond: ("outer".order_id = "inner".order_id)
   ->  Sort  (cost=5.33..5.33 rows=2 width=4)
         Sort Key: orders.order_id
         ->  Index Scan using ak_po_number on orders  (cost=0.00..5.32
rows=2 width=4)
               Index Cond: ((merchant_order_id)::text =
'11343445'::text)
   ->  Sort  (cost=nan..nan rows=2023865 width=1257)
         Sort Key: order_lines.order_id
         ->  Seq Scan on order_lines  (cost=0.00..83822.65 rows=2023865
width=1257)

If I restrict the columns (i.e., select 1 from ...), it works great.

I can add columns and it seems that once I get a width of more than
~610, it executes a Merge Join of cost nan that takes forever to return.

If I reduce the columns returned to slightly below this, I get a much
nicer plan:

----------------------------------------------------------
 Nested Loop  (cost=0.00..16.60 rows=4 width=606)
   ->  Index Scan using ak_po_number on orders  (cost=0.00..5.69 rows=3
width=4)
         Index Cond: ((merchant_order_id)::text = '11343445'::text)
   ->  Index Scan using ak_order_line_doid on order_lines
(cost=0.00..3.61 rows=2 width=610)
         Index Cond: (order_lines.order_id = "outer".order_id)

Is this possibly just an overflow that causes a NaN that isn't properly
handled by the optimizer?

This is on Redhat 3.0 AS U3 x86 with the RPMs from postgresql.org.

Thanks!