Create hooks to let a loadable plugin monitor (or even replace) the planner
and/or create plans for hypothetical situations; in particular, investigate
plans that would be generated using hypothetical indexes. This is a
heavily-rewritten version of the hooks proposed by Gurjeet Singh for his
Index Advisor project. In this formulation, the index advisor can be
entirely a loadable module instead of requiring a significant part to be
in the core backend, and plans can be generated for hypothetical indexes
without requiring the creation and rolling-back of system catalog entries.
The index advisor patch as-submitted is not compatible with these hooks,
but it needs significant work anyway due to other 8.2-to-8.3 planner
changes. With these hooks in the core backend, development of the advisor
can proceed as a pgfoundry project.