Raul,

<< I'm not sure but i think the MySQL optimizer likely resolves it back to
proper inner join join if you just use where clause like you did >>

Yes, more than likely.

<< it might be worthwhile to email elevate support and see if Tim can
implement something like this in optimizer as well. >>

Noooooooooo.  DBISAM had support for this, and it was a nightmare.  The
reason for this is that the optimizer has to untangle the joins and make
sure that there aren't any circular relationships (both EDB and DBISAM use
nested-loop join architectures).

Plus, the WHERE clause joins always being un-optimized is actually a nice
advantage when you want to do "additional" WHERE clause processing on
columns in two tables that are already being joined via a JOIN clause.  It's
the optimal way to execute such conditions.

Tim Young
Elevate Software
www.elevatesoft.com