Link: http://momendba.blogspot.com/2009/07/who-says-full-table-scans-are-evil.html

Really good article that demonstrates how full table scans can be better than indexed scans... but as you read on, the real truth emerges as to why. Lesson to be learned... if your statistics are up to date, then the optimizer will do its job in almost all cases... if they are out of wack, thats when you find yourself using optimization hints. So think twice before you apply the optimization hint and promote that to production. Work with your DBAs to identify the root cause.