Free and leaner, yes. More flexible? That’s debatable. As I pointed out, it’s certainly not more flexible when it come to returning multiple result-sets from a single procedure.

I think that PG actually did just add a feature called stored procedures though. So maybe soon for returning multiple heterogeneous selects! It’s one feature that I’ve been waiting a long time for…

I chose SQL Server in many cases for it’s very high quality, support, superior ease of use and flexibility. Free and leaner weren’t very high on my list comparatively. You think those are the best characteristics to go by?

MS SQL Express Edition is also free and arguably more advanced than the free competition, I don't know a single way PostgreSQL is better. That does not make PostgreSQL bad at all, especially when you go beyond the limit of free MS SQL (10 GB per database) then PostgreSQL is my first choice.