Wait a minute. Bingo!!!! So for unique checks we are already going to index from Heap. So it is the same thing i am doing with Thick index. So if we can trust our current unique checks, then we should trust the Thick index.
Thanks Tom!!! for having this good conversation....
I think this broken data type problem / volatile function issue has to be resolved for the current index, if we advocate to stop the thick index. WOW!!!
I think, this opens up lot of opportunities for improvement in Postgres.
a) HOT can now extend its reach beyond page boundaries
b) If a heap has three indexes and the update is going to affect only one index, then we need not update the other two indexes.
HOT can have more cleaner and fresh approach. If we have both normal index without snapshot and the thick index, Postgres can boast itself of having a very rich index family, in which it has some index structures for update/delete intensive transactions(normal index) and the thick index for select based transactions.
Marketing folks can easily advertise the product.....:))))
Gokul.