text equality worse than pattern matching (v8.1.8) - Mailing list pgsql-performance

I'm running in some weird (IMHO) bahviour.
When I search a table for certain text (equality est on the relelvant field)
it takes much more time than doing the same test by adding a trailing '%' and
using the LIKE operator.
With much more I mean 1000+ times slower.

This is the table (sorry for the Italian strings):

----| PSQL |----
noa=# \d ts_t_records
                                          Tabella "public.ts_t_records"
    Colonna    |           Tipo           |
Modificatori
---------------+--------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------
 fiel_uniqueid | bigint                   | not null
 item_uniqueid | bigint                   | not null
 reco_alphanum | text                     | not null default ''::text
 reco_floating | double precision         | default 0.0
 reco_integral | bigint                   | default 0
 reco_timedate | timestamp with time zone | default now()
 reco_isactive | boolean                  | default true
 reco_effectiv | timestamp with time zone | default '-infinity'::timestamp
with time zone
 reco_uniqueid | bigint                   | not null default
nextval('ts_t_records_reco_uniqueid_seq'::regclass)
Indici:
    "ts_i_records_0" btree (item_uniqueid)
    "ts_i_records_1" btree (reco_uniqueid)
    "ts_i_records_2" btree (reco_isactive, reco_effectiv)
    "ts_i_records_3" btree (reco_alphanum)
    "ts_i_records_4" btree (fiel_uniqueid)
----| /PSQL |----

And these are the EXPLAINs for the queries:
----| PSQL |----
noa=# EXPLAIN SELECT * FROM ts_t_records WHERE fiel_uniqueid=2 AND
reco_alphanum='TEST' AND reco_isactive AND reco_effectiv<=NOW();
                                        QUERY PLAN
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Bitmap Heap Scan on ts_t_records  (cost=5110.50..6191.86 rows=277 width=65)
   Recheck Cond: ((reco_alphanum = 'TEST'::text) AND (fiel_uniqueid = 2))
   Filter: (reco_isactive AND (reco_effectiv <= now()))
   ->  BitmapAnd  (cost=5110.50..5110.50 rows=277 width=0)
         ->  Bitmap Index Scan on ts_i_records_3  (cost=0.00..36.32 rows=5234
width=0)
               Index Cond: (reco_alphanum = 'TEST'::text)
         ->  Bitmap Index Scan on ts_irecords_4  (cost=0.00..5073.93
rows=812550 width=0)
               Index Cond: (fiel_uniqueid = 2)
(8 righe)

noa=# EXPLAIN SELECT * FROM ts_t_records WHERE fiel_uniqueid=2 AND
reco_alphanum LIKE 'TEST%' AND reco_isactive AND reco_effectiv<=NOW();
                                                     QUERY PLAN
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Index Scan using ts_i_records_3 on ts_t_records  (cost=0.00..6.01 rows=1
width=65)
   Index Cond: ((reco_alphanum >= 'TEST'::text) AND (reco_alphanum
< 'TESU'::text))
   Filter: ((fiel_uniqueid = 2) AND (reco_alphanum ~~ 'TEST%'::text) AND
reco_isactive AND (reco_effectiv <= now()))
(3 righe)

----| /PSQL |----

Not only are query plans very different, but the equality query is much worse
than the pattern matching one.

In my (maybe wrong) mind I expected the reverse.

What's wrong with the my expectations? Am I missing something?

MTIA.

--
Vincenzo Romano
----
Maybe Computers will never become as intelligent as Humans.
For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1987]