Phil Mayers <p.mayers@imperial.ac.uk> writes:
> Put another way - I *don't* want to use the order of the JOINs as an
> explicit command to the planner, but *do* need to use the JOIN syntax
> since I need OUTER and FULL joins in some or all queries (which you
> can's specify with WHERE).
This behavior has been changed for 7.4, but there isn't much to be done
about it in 7.3, unless you want to try to back-port the relevant fixes.
regards, tom lane