Tanel Poder had a great post about bind variable peeking, http://blog.tanelpoder.com/2010/02/02/bind-variable-peeking-execution-plan-inefficiency/  I run into this exact issue more often than I would like to and have found a few tricks to refrain it from happening in code that is “vulnerable” to the situation. Truthfully, there isn’t much you can do when Oracle has gone in and performed a bind peek and chosen a poor example to peek on.  As a DBA, you simply know there is an issue when the explain plan states that the CBO has determined the cost is exceptionally low to perform a nested loop on a…