Whether or not it's bad application design, it's ubiquitous, and we should make it work as best we can, IMNSHO. This often generates complaints about Postgres, and if we really plan for world domination this needs to be part of it.
There are many other things to fix first. One of them would be optimizer decisions when a temp table is involved. I would also vote for wait event interface, tracing and hints, much rather than speeding up count(*). World domination will not be achieved by speeding up count(*), it will be achieved by providing overall performance akin to what the player who has already achieved the world domination. I believe that the company is called "Oracle Corp." or something like that?
Mladen Gogala Sr. Oracle DBA
Don't listen to him. He's got an oracle bias. Slashdot already announced that NoSQL is actually going to dominate the world, so postgres has already lost that battle. Everything postgres devs do now is just an exercise in relational masturbation. Trust me.
