> feasible in such cases? Or in other words, can I somehow optimize LIKE and
> regexp queries that start with a wildcard?
If they start with a wildcard, but end in character data you could
reverse the string and index that...
If they start and end with a wildcard, your best bet is a full text
indexing solution (various contrib modules).
--
Rod Taylor <rbt(at)rbt(dot)ca>
PGP Key: http://www.rbt.ca/rbtpub.asc