Why aren't primary key / foreign key matches used for joins? As far as I could find out many DBMSs (e.g. mysql, postgres, mssql) use fk and pk combinations only to constrain changes to data, but they are rarely natively used to automatically select columns to join (like natural join does with names). Why is that? If you've already defined a relationship between 2 tables with a pk/fk, why can't the database figure out that if I join those tables I want to join them on the pk/fk columns?

EDIT: to clarify this a bit:

suppose I have a table1 and a table2. table1 one has a foreign key on column a, which references to the primary key on table2, the column b. Now if I join these tables, I'll have to do something like this:

SELECT * FROM table1
JOIN table2 ON table1.a = table2.b


However, I already defined using my keys that table1.a references to table2.b, so it seems to me that it shouldn't be to hard to make a DBMS system automatically use table1.a and table2.b as the join columns, such that one can simply use:

SELECT * FROM table1
AUTO JOIN table2


However, many DBMS don't seem to implement something like this.
In many cases, there are more than one way to join two tables; See the other answers for lots of examples. Of course, one could say that it would be an error to use the 'automatic join' in those cases. Then only a handfull of simple cases where it can be used would be left.

However, there is a severe drawback! Queries that are correct today, might become an error tomorrow just by adding a second FK to the same table!

Let me say that again: by adding columns, queries that do not use those columns could turn from 'correct' into 'error'!

That is such a maintenance nightmare, that any sane style guide would prohibit to use this feature. Most already prohibit select * for the same reason!

All this would be acceptable, if performance would be enhanced. However, that's not the case.

Summarizing, this feature could be used in only a limited set of simple cases, does not increase performance, and most style guides would prohibit its usage anyway.

Therefor it is not supprising that most database vendors choose to spend their time on more important things.