Here’s a quotation that I’ve just read and wanted to share. It is all part of a BAAG approach to troubleshooting problems, performance in particular. From Greg Rahn (web|twitter) on oracle-l: There are always exceptions, but exceptions can be justified and supported with data. Just beware of the the silver bullet syndrome… The unfortunate part […] is that rarely anyone goes back and does the root cause analysis. It tends to fall into the bucket of “problem…solved”.