Personally, I went to sleep. I can understand JMC, since he's in a time zone several hours removed from the one I'm in, but some of y'all are rabid insomniacs.

So, let me clarify my position, as well: TableAdapters are not bad. They can be confusing, and that's bad, but if you understand them well, then there is nothing wrong with them, but nor is there anything particularly right with them. If you understand ADO.NET, then the TableAdapter is just a tool that uses it. I don't see any particular advantage to using that tool over other tools, but it's just a tool.

However, in THIS case, I think you'd be better off not using TableAdapters. The reason is that it IS a black box. You have gotten to a situation where the TableAdapter doesn't do what you want without effort, at which point you have to learn it to a greater level of understanding to accomplish what you want. Therefore, you aren't moving towards your goal, you're sidetracked into learning something new. At this point, you can try to learn "just enough" to solve your specific problem, while leaving TableAdapters as a black box, or you can learn ADO.NET (which TableAdapters are a part of, or are a layer built on top of, depending on your point of view). Frankly, having read your stuff for some time, I think you'd be happier learning ADO.NET. It's not difficult (I showed a reasonably functional example), and you strike me as somebody who would prefer to have that level of understanding. If you then went back to TableAdapters, you'd find them a bit weird, but you'd be able to look through the code generated by VS and see how it was built on top of what you already know.

So, I'm not saying that TableAdapters are bad. I'm saying that I prefer not to use them, and that, based on what I've seen from you, I think you'd share that preference.