A colleague of mine forwarded the following article along to me:
Deciding between COALESCE and ISNULL in SQL Server (http://www.mssqltips.com/sqlservertip/2689/deciding-between-coalesce-and-isnull-in-sql-server/)
I switched over from ISNULL to COALESCE a couple of years ago and haven’t looked back, primarily to standardize and avoid nested ISNULLs. This article seems to affirm my thought that there are few disadvantages to COALESCE except in certain unusual circumstances. It’s worth a quick read.
