Bad plan by Planner (Already resolved?)

Hi,

I stumbled upon a situation where the planner comes with a bad query
plan, but I wanted to mention upfront that I'm using a dated PG version
and I already see an update which mentions about improving planner
performance. I just wanted to check if this issue is already resolved,
and if so, which version should I be eyeing.

My PG Version: 8.4.7
Probably solved in: 8.4.8 / 9.0.4 ?

Issue: It seems that the planner is unable to flatten the IN sub-query
causing the planner to take a bad plan and take ages (>2500 seconds) and
expects to give a 100 million row output, where in-fact it should get a
six row output. The same IN query, when flattened, PG gives the correct
result in a fraction of a second.

Do let me know if this is a new case. I could try to give you the
EXPLAIN ANALYSE outputs / approximate table sizes if required.

EXISTING QUERY:
     SELECT field_b FROM large_table_a
         JOIN large_table_b USING (field_b)
     WHERE field_a IN (SELECT large_table_b.field_a
     FROM large_table_b WHERE field_b = 2673056)

RECOMMENDED QUERY:
     SELECT s1.field_b FROM large_table_a
         JOIN large_table_b s1 USING (field_b)
         JOIN large_table_b s2 ON s1.field_a = s2.field_a
     WHERE s2.field_b = 2673056

--
Robins Tharakan