What are the consequences of setting varchar(8000)?
Length is a constraint on the data (like CHECK, FK, NULL etc)
Performance when the row exceeds 8060 bytes
Can not have unique constraint or index (key column width must be &lt; 900)
The default is SET ANSI PADDING ON = potential for lots of trailing spaces to be stored
SQL Server will assume average length is 4000 for sort operations, allocating memory based on this (need to find a link to back this up but rust me while I do :-)


Summary: don't do it.