Quote Originally Posted by szlamany
... MS wants you to do this - they like that T-SQL is not ANSI-standard and hope you use ISNULL instead of COALESCE. They want you to develop EXTENDED SPROCS that tie you forever to the MS SQL/WINTEL world. ...
Personally I don't see it as a "bad" approach at all - you're using MS (or whatever) technology(ies) so use their syntax but don't mix it up - you may end up with something completely out of hand ...

Quote Originally Posted by szlamany
... We believe in leveraging the technology that we have to the fullest extent.
It's what you believe - there are plenty of alternatives, however, that could be better ...