[Andreas]

Originally Posted by Paul M

I guess it also depends on what you mean by 'optimization' - using those functions may reduce the code in the hack slightly, but the functions themselves have a lot of code in them

That's the reason why I marked it with a '?'
The way I did it is close to how vBulletin itself does it, and I assume that way is optimized for Performance, although it might have more Code.
But on the other Hand, the Query gets a Bit lighter as it does not invlove joins.
Although there is less code to eval().
But as said, I am not sure if this has an impact on Performance - it was just a thought